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."
Not having any idea what that was supposed to mean, Harriet followed the Potions Master through the Moon Mirror into the Aerie, clamoring up the frame's edge while he could simply step over it. She tried not to blush as she nearly toppled to her arse on the other side.
"Why're we in the Aerie, Professor?"
"Because it's private—more private than any other place in the castle, and it's imperative Slytherin does not learn of your lessons with me. Not at this time."
Harriet caught those small addendums—with me and not at this time. Did that mean Slytherin wouldn't care about her taking lessons with Dumbledore or McGonagall? Or, perhaps, it was more critical for Snape to appear detached? She couldn't be sure.
"But there will be a time, then?"
"At some point, I imagine he'll pawn off meaningless instructions for me to complete. He does so enjoy delegating when it suits his mood."
Snape proved his competence with the Aerie when he strolled toward the nearest archway and summoned the room they needed—a long, empty hall, well-lit by the Aerie's ubiquitous, mullioned windows and the golden light beyond them. You could lose track of time in Ravenclaw's domain, lost wandering the shelves and rooms, the light always bright, untouched by the day or night. When he spoke, Snape's voice bounced on the stone floor and the paneled walls, echoing up into the intricate ribbing of the arched ceiling.
"Did you write Johannes Jonker as I told you to?"
Harriet wrinkled her nose. "Yes?" Then, realizing what he was hinting at, she pulled her right sock down just enough to show the wand brace hidden there. The Charms on the short bit of leather made it so cloth stretched over the top if it appeared smooth, conforming to the wearer's leg. Harriet kept her mum's wand tucked inside of it, strapped to the outside of her calf.
"Good. Keep it on you always. Stay there."
He crossed to the other side of the hall, taking his time, while Harriet remained fairly close to the entrance. He seemed to be deep in thought, but she broke his concentration.
"You were right, by the way," Harriet said. Snape turned to face her, the motion abrupt, and she nearly startled.
"I usually am, but what was I right about now?"
"The second trial. It was—well, like you said. He wanted to pick out those who...couldn't master their fears." Harriet grimaced, thinking of Hermione, who had cried but remained one of the bravest witches she'd ever met. If not for Set's intervention, Harriet wouldn't have made it from the room. She wasn't brave. Not like Hermione. Not like Elara.
Snape gave a short, brisk nod, his lip curling. "He revels in seeing his followers writhe. Slytherin, Gaunt, the Dark Lord—to a one. They are sadists who delight in finding out just how far a man or woman can bend before they break." He shrugged out of his outer robes, the heavy material sliding down his shoulders and arms. A silent spell from his wand sent them flying to the wall, where they hung as if snagged on an invisible hook. "Your third trial will be a duel. A series of eliminations rather than an all-out brawl. He'll make a spectacle of it."
Harriet glanced at him as she pulled off her own robes. She didn't have a fancy spell to hang them up, so she let them flop onto the floor. She nudged them away with her foot, clearing her throat. "Did he tell you that?"
"No. It is simply...expected." An emotion crossed his face, a slight tension around his dark eyes, by his mouth. "It is the Dark Lord's privilege to demand his followers fight for his favor—or his entertainment, like the gladiators of old. He tests them. He tests us, constantly weighing our fates against our usefulness, our talent. Do not think this a simple, gaudy tattoo, girl." He gestured at the interior of his left sleeve, indicating what lay below, hidden. "I know what Slytherin will require of you because the Dark Lord requires it of his prospective Death Eaters. I had to fight for this honor." He spat the word like venom. "To have this branded into me as if I were chattel, I had to cut through his other initiates and survive the bloody melee. I will bear the scars of their curses and hexes for the rest of my life, all so the Dark Lord could look upon me—battle-worn, trembling, and bleeding, standing among his dying faithful—and clap."
Harriet swallowed as Snape drew his wand, and she did the same. She'd never given a thought to how very large he was—and not in the way that Uncle Vernon was large. Rather, large like a statue that was thin and gaunt and yet still eight feet tall and forty stone. He towered over her, broad and scowling, and Harriet couldn't imagine what it would be like to face down Severus Snape in real combat. She'd be mad to try.
"So yes, Miss Potter. I do know what he will expect from you and the others. I know better than most."
Terror and unease crawled under her skin like living things as the analogous relationship between Harriet and Slytherin compared to Snape and the Dark Lord occurred to her. Was she attempting to become something like a Death Eater?
Sick burned in her throat, but she forced it down. No, no. She wasn't—she would never be—.
"Do you realize the point of my instruction tonight, Potter? The point of being Slytherin's apprentice?"
Harriet returned her thoughts to the present and nodded, but her hands fidgeted, the right tapping her wand against her thigh in a quick, nervous rhythm. "Yes? To fight him? To—learn how to beat the Dark Lord."
Snape let out an aggravated breath, clearly straining for more patience. "The point in being his apprentice is not in the position itself. Slytherin won't be teaching you how to defeat the Dark Lord. We—me, Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall—are teaching you how to survive, how to thwart him. The defeat is incidental; your survival is what matters, impudent girl."
"I...don't know if I fully understand."
Snape gave his eyes a brief roll as if that had been obvious. "Slytherin will teach you to fight. You will emulate him—his style, his strengths, his weaknesses. The reason he does not duel before an audience is so his faults cannot be disseminated. However, in training an apprentice, it will be impossible for him not to pass those faults onto you."
Harriet followed along with his words—Snape speaking perhaps a tad slower than normal, which she appreciated. "But how does that help me in the long run? Because we'd have the same—err—weaknesses, right?"
"Which is why we are here. Beyond teaching you how to succeed in your final trial, you will come to me and we will train. I will find your weaknesses and, in that way, find his weaknesses. I will teach them to you so that you may overcome and exploit them should the need arise for you to protect yourself."
"Wouldn't—?" Harriet's voice faltered, but Snape gestured for her to continue. "Won't Slytherin notice something is different if you train me? Couldn't it—I don't know, backfire? Make him aware of his own shortcomings?"
Snape nodded. "And therein lies the difficulty of your task. You must learn how to fight in different ways, to remain aware of yourself in a manner that will most likely go against your instincts. I will not lie to you or give you false cheer as the Headmaster would, Potter. This will not be easy. This is not a weekend lark, but rather a long, thankless task you will not enjoy. However, it remains the most probable way in which you can safeguard yourself from the Dark elements of our society."
Harriet could only nod, already tired, not at all looking forward to what kind of misery Slytherin could unleash on her. Learning how to fight sounded like a perfect excuse for him to hex her into the ground over and over and over again, all while she had to maintain a pretense of not knowing how to counter him, how to best him.
Merlin, don't kid yourself, she thought. If Dumbledore and Snape can't beat him out, what chance do I have, apprentice or no? There's no pretense.
Snape studied her, gaze flicking from her feet to her face, his wand twirling once between his fingers. He tilted his head, stretching, and the bones in his neck popped.
Harriet felt like an idiot, bracing herself for what she didn't know. Her heart thumped hard against her sternum.
"Attack me, Miss Potter. Act as if I were your enemy." The smallest of smiles touched his thin face, there and gone before Harriet could register the self-deprecating slant of his mouth. "Remember that I am a Death Eater who helped your parents into their graves."
She fumed, but steadied herself. "The best lesson I could possibly teach you is not to become frustrated when presented with a seemingly impossible task," the Headmaster's voice resonated in her head. Harriet chanted to herself, don't get frustrated, don't get frustrated, because she knew Snape meant to provoke her.
Harriet slid her feet apart, knees slightly bent. She thrust her arm forward— "Expelliarmus!"
Snape swatted the spell aside with a weak shield. He scoffed. "Is that the best—?"
Harriet sent a Leg Locker Curse sailing toward him, skipping it across the floor as she had once with Professor Slytherin, and Snape's hand blurred into action, throwing a quick shield toward his feet, the spell bouncing with a thwap!
"Good!" Snape said, a searing light in his eyes. "Use your opponent's distraction!"
She sent four more hexes at the wizard, trying to vary the angles to catch him off-guard, but Snape moved as if he could anticipate where the spells would come from before they'd even been spoken. He needed only to give his wand an efficient flick, his lips moving with softly spoken words, and each hex shattered against a different colored shield.
"How—?"
He sent a Disarming Jinx towards her, and Harriet jerked to the side, wide-eyed.
"Be aware an enemy might send one spell to force you into the path of another."
Another Disarming Jinx jetted toward her—and then a Tripping Jinx she barely managed to shield against when she stepped aside. Merlin, he's quick!
"As for your question, certain spells dictate certain motions in the wand and body, and those motions have a fixed probability of class, element, and color." Snape eased from his fighting stance with surprising grace. He held his empty hand in front of his body, almost level with his groin, and when he spoke, it was in his most professorial tone. "If the wand's motion begins from here, muladhara, it is red. From here—." He raised his hand to his navel. "Swadhisthana, it is orange. Here—." His solar plexus. "Manipura, yellow—." He tapped the center of his chest next, then his throat, between his eyes, and the top of his head. "Anahata, vishuddha, ajna, sahasrara. Green, blue, indigo, violet. Or, if you're a simpleton—." He dragged his index finger from the top of his head down his middle. "Vibgyor."
"That's—about the V.E.R.D, right?"
"Birch's Law: viscosity, elasticity, refraction, and density of spells. At least something of my teachings penetrated your thick skull. I do so loathe wasting my breath."
Harriet scowled. "I listen!"
"Tell that to McGonagall."
Her face fairly glowed red.
"Depending on the beginning motion of your wand, I can postulate which spell you will use—or at the very least the color, predicting the intensity of shield needed to block your assault."
"That sounds impossible! How am I meant to know how to do that?!"
"Practice, girl. Dedication! It is why we are here. Now—come at me again!"
They only spent an hour trading spells, and Snape managed not to bite her head off, though he did bark a few rough, impatient commands when she messed up. Harriet took his attitude in stride, determined to let him rile her temper, and Snape responded in kind.
Whatever else he was, the man was a bloody demon with his wand.
When he called an end to the practice, checking the time on his pocket watch, Snape conjured a pair of cups with water inside. He handed one to her. Harriet felt knackered and out of breath, but the Potions Master didn't look at all ruffled, not a single black hair out of place. He could have left his robes on and not broken a sweat.
Barmy. Utterly barmy, Harriet told herself as she gulped water and Snape looked on, bored. His gaze paused on a slight red mark rising on her hand. A spell had managed to break the edge of her shield and graze her. He looked away, and the muscles in his jaw twitched.
As she caught her breath, Harriet dared ask the wizard about something that had been bothering her for some time. "Professor?" she ventured. "What am I going to do about my Parseltongue?"
The cup paused on its second trip toward his mouth, and Snape frowned, a sharp line appearing between his brows. "What in the blazes are you on about?"
"If I have to be Slytherin's ruddy apprentice, I'll have to be around him more, yeah?" Harriet grimaced at the mere thought. It made her stomach upset. "He's always saying things in Parseltongue. Little snide comments in class no one else can understand—and it sounds like English to me. I try not to react, but sometimes it's hard not to wince or—I don't know—move when he's nasty. He's never noticed before, but what if he does when it's just the two of us?"
Snape's frown increased, and he glared at the far wall, considering her words. "In an ideal situation, he would never discover your ability."
Harriet sucked in air to argue, and Snape continued, louder.
"However, you are not incorrect in assuming he is more vigilant in personal settings. Before, it would have spelled your doom for him to know—but now...now you can turn it to your benefit."
"How?"
"He values resourcefulness, to an extent. Especially if that resourcefulness can be used in his favor. Before, you would have been a rogue element—a Parselmouth outside of his purview, with a skill he covets as his own. Solely his own. Now, as his apprentice? It depends on how closely he views you as an extension of his will. Revealing the skill will either be to your benefit or detriment."
"That sounds like a lot of words to say, 'I don't know what would happen, Potter.'"
"Don't be impertinent," Snape snarled. Harriet chose not to react, picking her wrinkled robes off the floor. She tugged them on and heard Snape take a breath, then another, before resuming in a somewhat calmer voice. "Return to your dormitory, Miss Potter. I've seen enough of you this evening."
"All right." She hesitated before leaving, fidgeting. She lifted her gaze to stare into his face. "When should I expect another lesson?"
"Soon. I will send word." Snape exhaled, and seemingly against his wishes, he lifted his hand to the nape of his neck, and his thin fingers pressed down, his thumb kneading the skin as if to relieve tension. He shut his eyes. "Go, Potter."
"Good night, Professor."
He didn't respond.
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A/N: Snape is referring to the seven classic chakras.