Chapter Text
As her brother slumped bonelessly against her, Heather reached out sluggishly to encircle him in her arms. Once she had ascertained that there was nothing wrong with him, she looked blearily around her. Her mind was cloudy, as if stuffed full of cotton. That alone rang alarm bells in her head. A sleeping draught? A knock-out jinx? What had happened? Last she knew, she'd been heading towards an early breakfast, wanting to spend some time with Hadrian before the Second Task.
WAIT! The task!
In lieu of trying to keep still for her unconscious brother, her fingers twitched violently in panic. It was then that she noted the buzz going on around them. She looked up when a warm towel was placed around her shoulders.
It was Madam Pomfrey, who patted her reassuringly before moving towards another young girl blinking in confusion nearby. Heather didn't recognise her, but she seemed somehow familiar. Next to the girl was Hermione and Cho, who were in similar states of disorientation.
What in blazes was going on?
For some reason, they were gathered around the edges of the Black Lake. It was only when Fleur Delacour stumbled out of the murky waters crying frantically that Heather's mind finally caught up with what her brother had said before passing out.
'Second Task. Captured. Safe now.'
If she understood that correctly, the four of them had been held captive as part of the task. The champions had probably been asked to rescue them.
She wracked her head for any recollection of her capture. How could she have just let that happen? Her occlumency training came in handy in this situation, allowing her to easily locate the memory she wanted. Let not the power of a well-organised mind be underestimated.
She watched the memory play out.
~~~
Heather left her common room quietly in deference to the early hour. She was frowning in thought, worried about what task her brother would have to face in a few hours. As per his request, she had washed her hands off of all of the tournament business. As such, she had no clue at all what the Second Task would entail. She just hoped Hadrian had a plan for it.
As she neared the exit of the dungeons, the back of her neck prickled. Someone was following her. She stretched her senses out, pinpointing the sources of foreign magic. Make that several someones.
With a subtle movement, her wand shot out of her robes sleeve and into her palm. She knew that it was unlikely that any truly malicious characters could have snuck into Hogwarts, but it wasn't impossible. Sirius had done it, after all, and no one had known he was innocent at the time.
Goosebumps erupted over her flesh when she sensed a burst of concentrated magic hurtling towards her. A silent spell. She spun out of the way, smoothly ducking out of the path of another spell. With the same motion, she shot out stunners towards where the spells had come from. Twin thuds told her that she had aimed true.
Now for the three other people. She threw up a shield just in time for a jet of crimson to bounce against it uselessly. The group was gradually closing in on her. The spells they'd used so far weren't deadly, just for incapacitation. That didn't comfort her in the least, but at least she knew they weren't aiming to outright harm her. She couldn't say she had the same compunctions.
She dodged and blocked several more spells, sending out a volley of her own that ended up downing two more of her unknown assailants. Just one left, then. She quickly cast a few binding spells towards the man, making them extra tight as a way to vent some of her irritation. Now to send for some help. She wanted to know what these idiots were trying to do.
Just as she began to wonder how she would call for help, she sensed a very familiar magical presence nearby. Well, that was convenient.
"Apologies, no time to explain."
Confused, she turned towards him and came face-to-tip with his wand. That blimey old co-
The last thing she saw was the bright red of Dumbledore's stunner.
~~~
Why that damnable old codger! Heather growled to herself after watching her memory. How dare that man? Her gaze scoured the crowd for the Headmaster, darkening in anger when she found him standing next to Bagman in his usual garish robes.
Oh, she'd be having words with him. Most definitely of the spellcasting variety.
She couldn't believe she'd let that old man get the drop on her! What was it Moody preached? Ah yes, CONSTANT VIGILANCE! Maybe the paranoid ex-auror was on to something after all.
The Beauxbaton Champion running towards the little girl next to Heather snapped her out of her thoughts. They started whispering fervently to each other in French, hugging and crying. Sisters, maybe. So if the young blonde was Fleur's hostage, then she would be Hadrian's. She supposed Hermione would be Viktor's and Cho, Cedric's.
So where were the other two champions?
Spying Fred and George trying to push their way through the crowd, Heather used some magic to clear a path for them. It was a neat trick, especially when she wanted to traverse a crowded area. They promptly made their way towards her once free of the mass, worried looks on their faces.
They started babbling as soon as they came within earshot, not even bothering to trade off their sentences. Which meant that they were speaking exactly in sync. It garnered more than a few amazed looks.
Heather was finally able to reassure them enough to tell them exactly what had happened the previous night. It was safe to say that they were far from impressed.
"Old Dumbles has another thing coming, if he thinks he can just abduct people without explanation," Fred and George both said, scowling up a storm.
"Exactly! The man has had one lemon drop too many, I think. How difficult would it have been to just summon me to his office and explain the situation?" Heather got even more enraged when she remembered how young Fleur's hostage was. She only looked about eight or so! They'd better not have done the same thing to her! The poor girl would have been terrified!
Just then, a loud alarm spell rang out.
"The hour's-"
"-up then." The twins had finally calmed down enough to revert to their regular speech pattern.
"What hour?" Heather asked.
"The task had a time limit of an hour. Of course, that was-"
"-moot when Hadrian here returned with all the hostages."
Her eyes widened in surprise. Huh, so that explained Cedric and Viktor's absences. "The other two are still in there?"
"Yup!" they answered, popping the 'p' loudly.
An employee from the Department of Magical Games and Sports was sent to retrieve the two remaining champions. Meanwhile, the panel of judges began to discuss the points to award each competitor.
Heather ignored them in favour of reinforcing the warming charm on her towel and draping it over her brother. She also asked her fellow hostages how they had been notified of their roles. Apparently all three Hogwarts students had been ambushed that morning without any warning. It was a small consolation that Gabrielle Delacour (Fleur's younger sister and hostage for the task) had been well-informed of it the night before by the Beauxbaton Headmistress instead of being attacked out of the blue.
"...should be disqualified!" Headmaster Karkaroff shouted angrily, "He didn't follow the task parameters!"
"Now, now, Igor," Dumbledore said placatingly, "There are technically no rules about rescuing other hostages. In fact, Hadrian should be rewarded for doing more than the task called for."
Heather's ears perked up at the mention of her brother. She glared at the Durmstrang Headmaster for trying to put down Hadrian. He had tried to do that for the First Task too.
Well, that reminded her. She had a bone to pick with Dumbledore.
Entrusting Hadrian to Fred and George, she stood and walked over to the group of judges and Professors.
"Excuse me, may I please speak with Headmaster Dumbledore please?"
Karkaroff looked at her with scorn, but Dumbledore turned to her with polite curiosity.
"How may I assist you, Heather? As you can see, we are in a bit of a quandary here. Might this wait for a while later?"
"Unfortunately, Headmaster, I have a few concerns that I feel would be best addressed as soon as possible," Heather said neutrally, her expression not giving anything away.
Worry flitted across the old man's face. "Oh? That seems rather ominous. Would you prefer some privacy to speak?"
Heather shook her head. "Oh, no need to trouble yourself, sir. Where we are is fine." When Dumbledore gestured for her to speak, she tilted her head and said, "I'd just like to ask why you felt it necessary to attack me with a group of five adult wizards this morning for the task when simply informing me in advance would have served just as well."
Most of the people around did a double take at her words, Dumbledore included. He probably hadn't anticipated her confronting him so publically.
Without giving him a chance to rebut, she continued, "I probably wouldn't have been so concerned had I been the only one. However, I found out that both Hermione and Cho had similar experiences. I was especially worried by Hermione. While she is a very capable witch, she is still only a fourth year and not even of age. Hogwarts was supposed to be a safe and protected place for young magicals." A bit more heatedly, she added, "By being assaulted and ambushed within her walls, our faith and trust in Hogwarts has been shaken." By you, was left unsaid but heard anyway.
"I was relieved to find out that Gabrielle had a gentler introduction to her role as a hostage for the task. Headmistress Maxime simply explained to her the situation and got her permission to put her under a Sustained Slumber spell. That seems like a much more effective way to go about things," Heather said, looking pointedly at Dumbledore.
"Heather, my girl," her eye twitched at the endearment Dumbledore used, "it was not my intention to frighten anyone or make you feel unsafe in Hogwarts, but I apologise if I have done so. There was no time for me to explain the situation."
"Thank you for the apology, Headmaster, but surely there was time yesterday to brief us on the situation, if not this morning. It was an enormous violation that the hostages were involved without their permission at all! While most of the champions had signed up for the tournament, the hostages did not and were taken against their will. It would be well within our rights to bring this up in court against the whole Triwizard Tournament Committee!"
"Now see here, you little-" Crouch shouted.
"I wasn't done, Mr Crouch," Heather cut off snootily. "First my brother was forced into this farce of a competition lest his magic be stripped from him. Now three other witches, one of whom is underaged, were abducted and held against their will to be part of a task! You can only be thankful that Headmistress Maxime had the prudence to retrieve her student's hostage on her own, otherwise there would be an international scandal on your hands!"
"I apologise again, Heather," Dumbledore said before anyone else could hex themselves in the foot again. "I hope you will convey this to Miss Granger and Miss Chang as well. I will personally see to it this will not happen again in future tournaments, if there are any more."
"Please see to it that you do," she said, just this side of condescending, "lest more people get hurt because of this imbecilic tournament."
"How dare you disparage this time-honoured tradition! You're just an insolent little girl who knows nothing!" a stranger, likely someone on the committee, spat out in offence.
"Yet it was discontinued for two centuries up until now. Yes, certainly a 'time-honoured tradition' celebrated by the wizarding populace the world over," Heather sneered. She then gave the man no further thought and directed her next sentence to Dumbledore. "I sincerely hope you will uphold your promise, Headmaster. I will certainly hold you to it. Thank you for your time, everyone."
Without allowing another word edgewise, she turned on her heel and strode off head held high.
~~~
In the end, it was decided that since points could not be awarded to the other champions for retrieving their hostages, they would be judged based on how quickly they reached the holding site and what kind of spells they used to get there.
Hadrian, of course, got the highest number of points for his quick completion as well as being able to rescue all four hostages. He had a few points deducted for deviating from the task given, however, something Heather knew Karkaroff must have pushed for. Following Rian in second place was Viktor, then Cedric and Fleur.
Thankfully, this change in the grading scheme, so to speak, had saved her brother from more harassment from Hufflepuff house. She shuddered to think of what those loyal little badgers would do if they thought Hadrian had ruined Cedric's chances of victory.
Not that the Hufflepuff champion in question was of that mind, himself. In fact, he had seemed to become even more enamoured with Hadrian after the event, if his besotted glances towards the Gryffindor table were anything to judge by.
~~~
"Heather!"
She made a startled sound as she was glomped from behind. Giggling, she patted the arms wrapped around her. She didn't need to turn around to see that her brother had been the one to ambush her. He was one of the few who didn't trigger any of her instinctive defences.
"Hey Rian."
"Wanna hang out? We can write Sirius - it's been a while." Without waiting for her reply, he reluctantly disentangled himself and tugged at her to follow.
"Sure," she said redundantly. She didn't mind, far from it. In fact, she revelled in the attention. Hadrian had been extra clingy since the task. While she felt a little guilty for worrying him like that, she couldn't find fault in the results she'd achieved. So she wanted to hog her baby brother's attention. Hex her.
"Oh, by the way, can I borrow the fang necklace I gave you for a little bit?" he asked casually.
Bemused, Heather nodded. "Sure, in the Den, alright? I don't want to take it off here." She thought about the basilisk fang in question. Sure, it didn't exactly look like much, shrunken as it was, but there was always the possibility of someone recognising it for what it was. Basilisk parts were a rare commodity. Enough to die for. Enough to kill for.
Once they settled themselves on the settee, Heather lifted it out of her blouse and handed it to Hadrian. Come to think of it, this was the first time she'd removed it since receiving it.
She watched as her brother cast several spells on it. Or, at least he tried to. Amused, she stopped him before he could waste any more magic. "Rian, you know that basilisks are mostly impervious to magic right?"
He groaned. "I'd forgotten." He inspected it critically. "Is there any way to make this easier?"
Heather tilted her head. "Depends. Do you need to spell the fang specifically, or just the necklace?"
"The necklace," he grumbled, "Not like you don't already know what I want to do with it."
"Only because I know you. And because I've used those spells before." She chuckled at the bewildered look on his face. "The bracelet, Rian. Don't tell me you didn't suspect. I always know where you are. Even without the map."
"And here I thought it was witch's intuition," he muttered. "Guess I shouldn't feel guilty about wanting to put a tracking charm on you, then. Turnabout's fair play."
Heather laughed his grumpy tone. "Well, in that case, you'd be best off trying to spell the fang after all. It's difficult to spell, but once the magic sticks, it can hold onto it almost indefinitely."
Hadrian listened raptly as she explained the mechanics behind it. Wistfully, she thought of their younger years and how he'd been amazed just by balls of light.
"Runes would be the best. Carved into the fang, they'll help conduct the magic better."
"Oh, speaking of that, I realised something during the task. Did you know it's more difficult to cast underwater?" Hadrian said offhandedly, "I think it's 'cos water doesn't conduct magic as well."
"Oh, that's pretty interesting. I'll have to try that out one day."
"Mm hmm. Anyway, so runes?"
~~~
They did eventually write that letter to Sirius. Unbeknownst to Hadrian, however, Heather had included a little bit about a certain Hufflepuff Prefect. As a dutiful goddaughter, she was obliged to inform Sirius about things like that.
As far as she knew, Cedric was treating her Hadrian pretty well. They sappy looks they frequently exchanged were a pretty good indicator of that. At least they still had the sense to be somewhat discreet.
Of course, that didn't mean she wasn't going to sic her ex-convict, prankster and vicious dog animagus of a godfather on him. Not to mention his Defence Master best friend who so happened to be a werewolf.
She was beyond delighted by the swift reply she got.
Dear Fawn,
Don't worry, Padfoot and Moony are on it.
Love, Sirius
~~~
Heather knocked briskly on the door, entering when she was given permission. Professor Snape eyed her, worry shining subtly in his dark gaze.
"Yes, Miss Potter? Is anything the matter?"
She almost did a double take at the anxiousness displayed by the normally unflappable man. Why was he so concerned?
"Have you had another flashback?" he asked again when she didn't answer.
Oh. So that was why. He thought she was here for one of their heart-to-hearts.
"Oh, no. Nothing like that. I just found out about something that I thought you'd like to know about."
He breathed an almost imperceptible sigh of relief. She hid a smile. Worrywart. Putting on a stern frown, he demanded, "Well, spit it out then!"
"Did you know that Mr Crouch goes into your potions storage at night?" she asked curiously. She'd discovered it quite by accident, while playing around with the map. She'd been thinking of wanting to replicate it, with a few extra features.
"Excuse me?" he said incredulously. "Bartemius Crouch, you mean? Head of International Magical Cooperation at the Ministry?"
"Well, unless you know another Bartemius Crouch," she said, grinning cheekily.
"Brat." Severus' traitorous mouth nonetheless twitched slightly. "As it happens, I do. His son, Bartemius Crouch Junior. But he died years ago." His amusement faded as he processed the new information. "What would that man want with my potions ingredients? Going so far as to sneak into Hogwarts." He muttered to himself, reciting all the ingredients he'd found missing recently. "Lacewing flies, boomslang skin, fluxweed..."
"Polyjuice, sir?" Heather said.
He nodded, having come to the same conclusion. Crouch was brewing it, no doubt about it. What was peculiar, though, was that he felt the need to steal the ingredients. He had ample means to obtain them, and with less effort, too. Something occurred to him.
"How did you come across this information?" It spoke volumes that he had immediately believed her, despite the outlandish accusation.
Her expression grew sheepish. "Err, maybe I should just show you." She then pulled out a piece of blank parchment.
Narrowing his eyes, he began revising whether it was wise to believe her so readily.
"Ye of little faith," Heather groused mildly. Spreading the parchment, she muttered a phrase inaudibly. It must have been a password or spell of some sort, because lines of ink started to spread across the paper.
Severus watched with barely-concealed interest as the most detailed map of the Hogwarts he'd ever seen was formed. Stunned, he noted the moving dots, labelled with names.
"Professor!" A hand waved in front of him, snapping him out of his shock.
He recovered quickly, inspecting the map again. "This is occurring in real time?"
"Yep. Amazing, isn't it? I've been trying to reproduce it."
"You did not create this?" he asked in surprise.
She laughed lightly. "No, but thanks for the compliment." She ignored the cursory glower he shot her way. Her mood visibly dropped when she added, "This is the Marauder's Map."
His own mood darkened considerably. "Is that so," he hissed contemptuously. So that was how they had pulled off all those ridiculous stunts. Still scowling at the parchment, he almost missed Heather's next words.
"This is how we - Hadrian and I - found Pettigrew."
He pondered the fact. "The map can see through animagic?"
She hummed in consideration. "Apparently so. What I saw was a dot near Ron labelled 'Peter Pettigrew'. I only realised it was referring to Scabbers because I knew about his animagus form."
"Would it be fooled by Polyjuice, I wonder." Was someone masquerading as Crouch to get into Hogwarts? It was a stretch, but no more than a high-ranking Ministry official having to steal Polyjuice ingredients.
"I'm not sure." Heather furrowed her brow in that way that meant she was thinking hard. He didn't linger for long on why he knew that. "We could test that out, I suppose. Do you have any Polyjuice?"
"Unfortunately, I do not." It was hardly a standard potion to have on hand. He usually only stocked healing potions. Or Calming Draughts for the frenetic NEWT students, but the sheer incompetence of the dunderheads he taught was neither here nor there.
"Well, it'll take a month to brew, so I guess we'll just have to wait. Unless you know somewhere you could buy it from?"
He sneered. "It is a controlled potion, as you well know. Any source that markets it is hardly legal, and even less reliable."
She sighed. "Well, a witch can hope. Will you be brewing it, or may I?" She looked pleadingly at him, widening her green eyes and pouting slightly. His heart beat sped up. He clenched his fists. Did she even realise what she was doing?
"I hardly have time for such trivial matters," he spat out. Turning his gaze quickly back to his marking, he dismissed her.
"Thank you sir! See you tomorrow!" Right, it was Tuesday, blast it all. Even without looking at her, he could picture her bright grin directed right at him.
He stared, unseeing, at the atrocious essays on his desk long after she'd left. Salazar help him, but all he could focus on were sparkling green eyes and riotous dark locks.
~~~
Saturday found Heather, Fred and George in the Den going over a new joke product. They had recently tested it out (on themselves, of course, they would never try works-in-progress on unsuspecting people) and received a rather lacklustre outcome. The avid discussion in the room was broken by the sudden arrival of Hadrian.
George grinned winningly at him. "Hadrian, my man! Glad you're here. Tell Forge over there that-"
"But-" Hadrian said helplessly.
"-No!" Fred interjected. "Tell Gred that-"
"I-"
Heather then cut in by covering the twins' mouths. "Enough, you two. It should be two measures of stinksap! Not one," she looked meaningfully at George, "not three," she turned to stare at Fred.
"And how are you so sure?" they both protested.
"Well-" Heather began.
"Guys!" Hadrian shouted, finally getting a word in edgewise. The other three immediately turned to him. "Anguis is sick!" Sure enough, he was holding his familiar in his arms, looking extremely worried.
Heather's gaze sharpened as she inspected the snake. Hadrian wouldn't be so worried if it was a simple ailment. In fact, Anguis hadn't fallen sick before - something to do with their familiar bond protecting her.
She cleared some space for her brother to put the taipan down on. While she wasn't quite familiar with snake physiology, she knew that Anguis was being more lethargic than usual.
"Have you asked-"
"-her what's wrong?" The twins petted the snake in comfort.
Hadrian shrugged helplessly. "All she said was that she's feeling really bad."
Remembering Madam Pomfrey's lessons, Heather asked, "How long has this been going on? And where is she feeling the worst?"
Hadrian hissed the questions at Anguis, who hissed back weakly. Meanwhile, Heather had started casting a diagnostic spell. Luckily, she knew one from a CoMC book that worked on all living creatures, and not just humans.
"She says she started feeling weird a week ago, but then it started to really hurt just now. Her abdomen hurts the most."
Hmm. No recent injuries, infections or poisons, according to the scan. "Could it be indigestion?" she mused. "What has she been eating?" It seemed an unlikely possibility, considering that Anguis had been feeling under the weather for a week already. Usually symptoms would present earlier. Still, maybe snakes had it different.
Hadrian hissed at Anguis briefly before replying, "The usual. Rats and birds she hunted within school grounds." He paused when Anguis hissed once more. "And a colourful beetle that tasted funny."
Suspicions confirmed, Heather stroked Anguis' head. "This is going to be uncomfortable. I need to make her regurgitate, since I think she ate something she couldn't digest properly." She waited for Rian to relay the news to his familiar, ignoring Fred and George's scrunched up faces.
When Hadrian nodded, Heather cast the spell. Immediately, Anguis reared her head back and opened her extendable jaws. He stroked her sides soothingly, not appearing to be bothered by the snake vomitus.
Neither were the rest of them, for a matter of fact. Well, when you regularly worked with potions ingredients like rat bile and bat spleen, you either got desensitised or you failed. Once a putrid mass of half-digested...err, 'food' was deposited on the floor, Anguis relaxed again.
"How is our serpent-"
"-queen feeling now?"
Anguis butted her head gently against them once Hadrian had passed on the message. "Much better, as you can tell," he said, smiling happily. "Also, she says you two aren't her type."
While Fred and George made mock-offended protests, Heather made a move to banish the mess. Suddenly, the pile of goop began to shift. Alarmed, Heather cast a dome shield around it.
All of them watched in stunned amazement as a human appeared to grow from the puke. Warily, Fred shot an Evanesco at the filthy person. Once clean, they recognised the unconscious form of Rita Skeeter.
Silence ruled while they stared bewilderingly at the reporter, who had been missing for about a week.
"Well," George stated, "life's never boring with you guys around."