The first thing Heather did once Poppy pronounced her well again was to throw her hands up in celebration. The muscles in her arms felt tight and she knew she would have to work on them daily to get them back to normal working condition. It was a much better improvement on the mummified state she'd been in the past week.
She carefully scrutinised herself once the bandages had been peeled off. Her arms were pale, even after just a week of sun deprivation. What her eyes caught on were the angry red scars that ran from her the dorsal surface of her wrist up to her elbows. Three lines on her left and four on her right. Poppy had done all she could for them, but scars inflicted by dark creatures were notoriously tricky to handle. And it wasn't like there were many people with werewolf scarring to experiment on. Most ended up dead, or turned.
The modified version of Murtlap Essence that Heather had was able to reduce the redness, but that just left darker scarring. Honestly, she wasn't overmuch bothered by them. In fact, Mrs Weasley was much more devastated than she was.
The only thing that mattered to Heather was whether or not she could still brew with her previous level of dexterity and stamina. And everything had seemed fine, at first. The first week or so she had spent on simpler and shorter potions, just to build up her strength again. By the time it came for her to brew the Wolfsbane Potion, however, she knew she was in trouble. It was the longest time she had spent brewing since her injury, and halfway through it, her arms had started cramping something fierce. And the pain wasn't even the worst of it, no. Pain, she could push through. It was the trembling.
She'd almost broken down when her hands started shaking, in time with the flares of dark residue that pulsed along her scars. Only the insanely volatile potion in her cauldron had kept her focussed enough to use her magic to pull through. Using magic to prepare ingredients and stir the potion was not a viable replacement for actual physical brewing, however. For one, it used up more magic than it was worth. For another, the more delicate potions could only handle magic in extremely precise amounts before being ruined.
She'd had no choice, however. Her hands had been shaking so much she couldn't even handle a knife without the fear of cutting herself. And because she channelled magic through her arms and hands, even that took more focus and control than she normally needed. This, this was a potioneer's worst nightmare.
Fred had found her on the floor of her lab, shaking apart with distraught tears, the Wolfsbane Potion thankfully completed without exploding. It had taken the combined efforts of both the twins and her brother to snap her out of it, but once she was done with her self-pity, she came up with a plan.
So although Heather didn't care about the appearance of the scarring, she did care that her ability as a potioneer was hindered by them. She was determined to create a potion that would give her back full use of her arms. And if in the process the potion would get rid of the scarring? Well, then it would benefit others whom it mattered more to.
~~~
The 31st of July had been much anticipated. It was Hadrian's birthday, and it wasn't just any birthday, but his 17th. He had finally come of age. Although he had, for all intents and purposes, already been regarded as an adult since his participation in the Triwizard Tournament, it was the sentiment of the event that mattered.
Mrs Weasley wanted to organise a large party for him, of course. Heather made no effort to tone her down, despite knowing how embarrassed Rian would be. She had plans of her own for her brother which would take up the afternoon, so that would give the Weasley matriarch freedom to go wild. It wasn't every day one turned 17, after all.
"Haaadrian!" Heather made a running start and jumped, throwing her arms around her brother who dropped whatever he'd been holding to catch her.
"Damn it Heather! A warning would have been good!" her brother said, though there was no real bite to his words.
"Happy birthday!" She leaned back a little, confident that Rian could hold her, and pinched his cheeks. "I can't believe my baby brother is finally 17!"
She could feel his face warm. "Heather!" he whined. "You are two, two, years older than me!"
Ron laughed, slapping him on the back. "If you haven't gotten her to stop calling you that by now, I don't think you ever will, mate."
Heather wiggled a little and slid out of her brother's arms, landing easily on her feet. "Come on, let's go eat breakfast! Mrs Weasley's prepared a spread. And then later we can get to your surprise," she said cryptically.
As expected, her brother's attention was piqued. "What surprise? What do you have planned?"
"I guess you'll just have to find out," she said, dodging his hands and running off.
It was the fastest meal she had ever seen Hadrian eat. He was eating faster than Ron and that was saying something. That obviously meant that she had to eat as slowly as humanly possible, of course. Fred and George were familiar with her game and they helped her by distracting her from her food or engaging her in conversation. Hadrian was about vibrating with impatience by the end of it all.
"I think you've tortured him enough today, Heather," Hermione finally said, ending Hadrian's misery.
"Okay, okay," Heather said, finishing her plate, "Go and dress in clothes you won't mind getting dirty and pack a light bag of whatever you'll need for a day out in the woods." She looked at Fred, George, Ron, Ginny and Hermione. "That means you lot too!"
Her brother was quick to drag everyone to go get ready and it took barely ten minutes for them to be gathered back in the living room.
"Last thing," she said, ignoring Hadrian's groan, "do you all have your animagus potions with you?"
They were all surprised at that, but they nodded. She caught Hadrian looking out the window, as if the bright sunlight and clear blue skies had somehow deceived him.
Stifling a chuckle, she said, "Great! Everyone, grab on to this!" She held out a nondescript branch of wood she had picked off the ground. It was only a teensy bit illegal to make personal portkeys without proper certification, but then again, being an unregistered animagus was much more than a teensy bit illegal.
They all slowly reached out to hold it.
"Wait, Heather, where are we going?" Hadrian asked.
She grinned at him with all her teeth. "We're going storm hunting!" And without waiting for the reaction to that, she incanted, "Portus!"
Valiantly bearing the sharp hook in her gut, she hung on through the ride. A pair of arms steadied her when she landed, saving her from a nasty fall. Ugh, portkeys were the absolute worst. Even worse than floo and apparition. Surprisingly, house elf teleportation was rather pleasant.
"Where is this place?" Ginny asked.
Heather brushed down her clothes, which always seemed to get messed up with wizard travel. "The Forest of Dean. Somewhere in Gloucestershire." It was lucky she'd gotten the coordinates for this clearing correct. Otherwise, some of them might have been shoved against the trees upon landing. It was a pretty site, with towering oak trees making for nice shade from the sun. If there was any sun, at least. The roiling dark clouds overhead made that a moot point.
"Oh!" Hermione exclaimed, "I've been here camping with my parents before!"
"How'd you know there was gonna be a storm here?" Ron asked, looking up at the overcast skies.
"Checked the muggle weather broadcasts. This was the closest place with enough privacy to do magic without being disturbed." Heather quickly walked the perimeter of the clearing, laying down the foundations of a ward.
"Muggles can do that?" Fred and George asked, disbelieving.
She hummed, trying to concentrate. The first part was the ward equivalent of a Notice-Me-Not charm. Next she started layering Muggle-Repelling wards and Privacy Wards.
"Yeah, of course. They play them on the telly every day," Hadrian said, "Dunno how they do it though."
"Well, I'm no expert, but they use machines to check a region's temperature, humidity levels, wind speed and direction, atmospheric pressure and various other variables," Hermione said, "Of course, historical data of precipitation levels help in making the predictions as well."
"Mione," Ron said dully, "I have no idea what you just said."
Heather walked back to them, having finished putting up all her precautions. She was huffing slightly in exertion, clenching and releasing her fists few times to get rid of the ache. Her arms were still tingling from the heavy magic use.
"Basically, muggles use science and technology to find out what the weather will be in advance. It's a little like Divination. They'll usually tell you how high the likelihood their prediction is correct, and today's forecast over this area was a 90% chance of a storm."
"Ohhh," Ginny said, confusion clearing from her face, "Why didn't you just say so, Hermione?"
"Well," Hermione huffed, "excuse me if the wizarding world doesn't even bother teaching their children the very basics of scie-"
"Whoa girls," Heather cut in, holding her hands out, "Do you really want to be doing this right now when there an impending thunderstorm and we haven't set up our shelter yet?"
"Heather's right," Hadrian said hastily, "I, for one, don't want to get drenched."
"Or get struck by lightning," Ron added.
Fred put a finger under his chin. "I don't know, I think it-"
"-could be kinda fun," George added with a smirk.
Heather rolled her eyes at the two boys for trying to stir up trouble. "Oh stop it, you two and go get the tent out from my bag."
They pouted, but went to go do as she said. They didn't want to be the ones on the receiving end of her glare if one of the kids caught a cold due to exposure to the rain. It wouldn't be anything a Pepper Up couldn't cure, but try arguing that with Heather.
Since it was a magical tent, there wasn't much they needed to do to set it up. Before long, it was ready. And just in time as well, as the forest was wracked with a deafening boom of thunder.
"Come on, go get your things and head inside!" Heather said, her voice raised so she could be heard.
Everyone hurriedly gathered their belongings and rushed in before the storm could hit. Ron was the last one to come in and he locked the tent flap behind him so the rain and other pests couldn't get inside.
The tent was much larger on the inside, about the size of the Defence classroom. Heather had been worried about someone's animagus form being a large one, like a lion or an elephant. The middle of the room was cleared out and lined with padded flooring while there were couches and tables along the walls.
"Okay everyone, I assume you already know what we'll be doing?" she asked.
Hadrian gave a loud whoop. "Hell yeah! We're finally gonna be animagi!"
Everyone looked at him in amusement. The whole animagus thing had been his idea, after all. He was the one that was the most excited about it.
"Your forms are the same as your patronuses, right?" Hermione asked Heather, Fred and George.
"That's right! But it's not always-"
"-the same. Just common."
"That's what Professor McGonagall said, anyway," Heather added.
"I don't care what I am! S'long as I'm not a rat," Ron said, scrunching his face up in revulsion. He visibly shuddered, clearly remembering the years he had spent with Pettigrew as a pet.
The thought was enough to freak Heather out too.
"I think it'd be cool to be a horse," Ginny said, "but it wouldn't be very inconspicuous, would it?"
"No use thinking about that," George said, shrugging.
"Not like you could change it anyway," Fred added.
"Shhh! Guys!" Hadrian hissed. "I think it's started!"
Sure enough, the pitter patter of raindrops falling to the ground could be heard. It took mere seconds for it to give way to a heavier downpour. It almost sounded like the tent was planted in the middle of a coursing river.
Hadrian made a sprint for the bag he'd put his potion in and the other followed at a more sedate pace. She sat back with Fred and George to watch eagerly as they downed their potions in a single gulp. It took several moments before anything happened.
When Hadrian gasped and arched his back almost painfully, Heather leaned forward, both worried and excited. The others soon began to react as well, and they watched closely as, one by one, they each transformed into their animal forms.
Hadrian was the first to complete his change, being the first to take it. She had to walk closer to even recognise what he was. And when she did, she immediately conjured a blindfold over his eyes. Thank the Founders his eyes had been closed at the time, or she didn't know what would have happened. Well, okay, she did know. She'd be dead.
Her knees collapsed underneath her as she realised what a close call she'd just had. Her chest bubbled with what she realised was hysterical giggles. In front of her, her brother was wriggling frantically, rubbing his head against the ground to try and dislodge the blindfold.
"D-don't. Hadrian!" she shouted. She took a gasping breath. {Hadrian, listen!} she said in severely mangled Parseltongue. Her brother stilled and turned his head in the direction of her voice.
"Heather, what's happening?" Fred asked, coming up to her.
She ignored him for now. "Hadrian, you have to pay attention, do you understand me?" He bobbed his head in the semblance of a nod. "Good, now listen carefully. You can't take off that blindfold yet. You're a basilisk."
Fred and George gasped loudly from behind her, but her focus was on her brother. His body coiled back, wrapping around itself in what she assumed to be shock.
"Don't worry Rian," she cooed, "You can control your eyes. There should be an inner eyelid underneath your regular one. That's called a nictitating membrane. If you have that over your eyes, your vision will be a little blurry, but you won't kill anyone on sight."
The tight coil loosened ever so slightly as Hadrian relaxed. He inched forward to butt his head against her outstretched hand, finding his way via his acute sense of smell. The little forked tongue that stretched out to tickle her palm made her giggle.
"See, Rian? This isn't so bad, your tongue is much better than your eyes in this form anyway."
Hadrian made a series of hissing sounds, which Heather could, unfortunately, not understand. "What is it? Want me to take off the blindfold?" A little snake nod. "You have your inner eyelids down?" Another nod. "Okay, hold on, I'll let you look at your reflection first to make sure you're safe, okay?"
Heather conjured a mirror to place in front of her brother and banished the black cloth, keeping her gaze steadily away.
"Alright?" She put her hand gently on Hadrian's head and felt him nod. "Okay." She took a deep breath. "Okay."
She put the mirror aside and forced herself to look a basilisk in the eye. There was milky film covering them, but from what she could see, they were a light amber. It was a shame she could not look at them directly, because she had a feeling that they were beautiful. With the hardest part of the whole thing over, she ran her gaze over the rest of his form.
There was an adorable plume of crimson feathers resting on the top of his head. A characteristic of male basilisks, she believed. His scales were Avada Kedavra green, the exact shade of his eyes, and they shone almost luminescent under the light. He was slightly shorter in length than Anguis, his own familiar, but about twice as thick.
Briefly, her thoughts went back to the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets and imagined how old and powerful it must have been to get to that size.
She finally finished her perusal of her brother's animagus form. "You make for a very handsome snake. I'd be careful going about like this where Anguis can see you. She'd try to steal you from Cedric."
Hadrian made a high-pitched hissing sound which she interpreted to be a rebuke.
"Yeah yeah. C'mon, go join the others." She shook her head, muttering, "Maybe one of them's a unicorn or something."
Apparently, Fred and George had hustled the others away to give her and Hadrian space once they heard that he was a basilisk. It was a good move on their part. Now that Hadrian was safely able to look at anyone without killing them, she could finally relax and see what animagus forms they had.
There was a Jack Russell Terrier falling over its feet, a horse going at a slow canter in a loose circle and an otter looking inspecting its form curiously in a mirror. Three guesses at who was what. The first two didn't count.
At least there were no more surprising – terrifying – animagus forms to be seen. It figured that with her brother's luck he'd end up with a Merlin-be-damned basilisk as his animagus form. Why couldn't he have just followed his patronus form like the rest of them? Seriously, only her brother.
Hadrian was quick to slither up to them, accepting curious pats and nudges from his friends.
Heather, Fred and George looked up at the same time, catching each other's gazes. As one, the three of them grinned.
A snidget and two foxes joined the fun soon after.
~~~
Heather leaned back into the sofa with a sigh. It had been a long day, with the animagus practice and Hadrian's party. It hadn't been a large one, with just the Weasley family, Sirius, Remus, some Order members and Cedric invited. Her brother had been ecstatic, however, despite his embarrassment at the fuss.
Even when Rufus Scrimgeour, the new Minister of Magic, had shown up uninvited to give Hadrian, Hermione and Ron the things Dumbledore had willed to them, the mood hadn't been ruined. Probably because Hadrian had said the equivalent of 'sod off' to the man when asked to join the Ministry's efforts in taking Voldemort down.
Seventeen was an important milestone for wizards and witches. It was the age of maturity, signifying one's readiness to step into the adult world. There were a few traditions observed to commemorate the occasion. Heather's favourite of those was definitely the passing down of a specific heirloom object.
Heather had almost teared up when Sirius gifted Hadrian the elaborate gold pocketwatch that their father had received from his own. Hadrian had definitely spilt some tears at that.
She herself had been presented with a brooch that had belonged to their mother on her own 17th birthday.
Looking around the room, she found almost everyone in a state of inebriation, some more severe than others. She hadn't touched the alcohol or even the spiked punch. Any taste she might have had for it had been utterly crushed after her experiences with it through Vernon Dursley. Even now, years later, the thought of drinking any brought to mind the stench on the man's breath as he pinned her to a wall.
The ghost of the memory had her shuddering in disgust. Suddenly, she got up from her seat and headed for the door.
"Where are you-"
"-going Heather-harp?"
She turned to give Fred and George a reassuring look. "Just need some air. I'll be fine."
The faint daze in their eyes from the firewhiskey cleared up at her words. Only when she scrounged up a faint smile did they let it go.
The night air was cool, even in the peak of summer. The skies were clear, allowing her to see the stars. It was peaceful out here. She loved the people inside the house like family, but all the rowdiness could get overwhelming.
She strolled aimlessly, thoughts just drifting. Tonight was meant to be a celebration, but she could not let herself forget that the war would be starting in earnest soon. Plans had to be made, horcruxes to be found. Not to mention the one in Hadrian...
The sight of two figures sitting at the base of a large tree had her stopping in her tracks. Hadrian and Cedric. They hadn't spotted her yet and she was intending to turn around and leave them to their privacy, but somehow her gaze was fixed on them. They were whispering quietly to each other, sitting so close there seemed to be no air between them.
It was little wonder they hadn't noticed her presence, not when they only had eyes for each other. Even from here she could see the love and joy on her brother's face when he looked at Cedric.
Suddenly, a memory from years past was brought to the forefront of her mind. A large, ornate mirror, showing her the image of her brother, all grown-up, with his significant other and children. Of course, she had pictured him with a nondescript witch at the time, not knowing his preferences. Now, she could easily substitute that nameless, faceless witch for Cedric in her mind. Cedric, who made his green eyes light up with happiness, who thought the world of her brother, who had given him his heart and received his in turn.
That was the future that she was fighting for.
There was no room for doubt, no place for hesitation. She would find a way to obliterate that horcrux while keeping Hadrian alive and well. There was no other alternative.
And that was her promise to him.
~~~
The doe came to her when she was alone in the kitchen of the Burrow. Mrs Weasley had insisted they stay the night after the party, citing that it was a day to spend with family. There was no way Heather could have said no to such a request.
The party had been wrapped up long ago, however. Everyone was abed, sleeping off the good food and drink. Heather had not been able to fall asleep, her mind too noisy with ideas and plots.
She immediately reached out for the doe, feeling a sense of peace wash over her. It was silly, but she felt that this way she could see if Severus was truly well.
"He has plans in motion to take over the Ministry. He will also be putting a Taboo on his name. Do not, under any circumstances, say the name that he gave himself. It will bring Snatchers to your location no matter where you are. I will be made Headmaster once the Ministry has fallen and a few others will serve as teachers. Try to persuade the muggleborn students not to attend next year. The followers he appears to favour most are Bellatrix Lestrange and Antonin Dolohov, I would investigate those two first. He brought several Deatheaters out with him today, but I was not able to learn more. I am still trying to find out more regarding the situation with your brother. Please, stay safe."
With that, the patronus disappeared. Her heart gave an inexplicable pang when the last wisps of light were gone. There was a lot of information she had to parse through, but she couldn't focus on that right now. Her mind was consumed with worry over Severus.
She summoned her own patronus, holding out her hand for her snidget to rest on.
"Thank you. Please be safe as well. Do not hesitate to ask for help," she said, recording the message into her patronus. Then, with instructions to only appear before Severus should he be alone and have no eavesdroppers, she let it go.
It was an hour or two later that she finally slipped off to bed, too tired despite herself to stay up any longer.