Chapter 3
“Where do you think the train goes?” Root asks, looking out at the green, rolling hills passing by outside their compartment window.
Shaw looks up from the pile of chocolates between them that Root had bought from the trolley. “The castle.” She’s using her Root-this-is-a-dumb-question voice.
“No,” Root turns around. “I mean after that. You don’t think it just stays there for the whole term, do you?”
“Why not?” Shaw selects the biggest chocolate remaining in the pile and unwraps it.
“Seems like a waste,” Root says. “If I had a train I would use it for other stuff.”
Shaw shrugs. “When’s the earliest you’ve gotten detention?”
“Counting the long one last year?”
“No, we got that one at the end of the year before.”
“Oh, end of the first week, then. You?”
“Second day. We can break that record, if you want.”
Root fidgets with excitement. “Do you think they’ll give us detention together again?”
“Maybe,” Shaw says. “If we pretend we still hate each other.”
“Pretend?” Root asks innocently.
“Shut up.”
As the train slows and then halts with a final rumble and hiss of steam, they huddle underneath Shaw’s invisibility cloak while the other students pile out of their compartments and leave the train in a jostling, disorderly fashion. Several older students pull open the door of every compartment to make sure no first years have gotten lost or left behind. After that, the train sits in resolute immobility and silence, apart from the erratic creaks and groans of metal cooling, expanding, and settling. The sky had become moody and overcast near the end of the journey, and now with night’s arrival the view out the window is nearly pure black.
A reasonable period of time passes, and no one else moves on board, and the cloak is stowed away. They wander up and down the train, peering into various compartments. Shaw flicks her wand and casts a hex that turns Root’s skin a pale blue. Root holds up her hands to observe her new coloring with interest, before weaving her own spell that causes Shaw’s shoelaces to believe they need to lace themselves with the opposite shoe. There’s no one outside the train to note the flashes of light from inside, or to hear the gentle plinks of breaking glass hit by a misaimed spell, or to witness the even less dignified kicks and punches that accompany the magical battle.
Some time later, with new bruises and, in Root’s case, a mildly broken nose after impact with a pair of hurled shoes, they resume exploration. The train shows no sign of departing.
“This is boring.” Shaw says.
“Disappointing,” Root agrees. “Waste of a good train.”
“Want to head back? Might still be some food left.”
They drag their luggage off the train, after a few steps towards the path to the castle, the idea to enchant their bags and trunks to float along behind them strikes. After only a few minutes of walking with the floating luggage beside them, an even better idea develops, and momentarily they’re both perched atop magically bound together piles of belongings that zoom off towards the castle of their own volition.
Expecting discovery and recriminations on their arrival, they’re surprised when they’re able to enter the castle unaccosted. The Great Hall is largely abandoned by the time they reach it, save for a few students strewn sparsely around the four long tables. Dinner is still present in abundance, however, so they find seats without particular regard for House. Their luggage is left just outside the Hall.
“Castle security is pathetic,” Shaw says between bites. “We definitely should have gotten caught.”
“Do you want detention?” Root asks.
“No,” Shaw frowns. “I don’t know. But we should’ve gotten caught. Why are we being so careful if they’re not even trying to catch us?”
Stormclouds bristle overhead amidst the floating candles, reflecting the weather outside the Hall. After a while a few drops begin to fall pointedly, as if trying to move the students along.
“I suppose it’s time for bed,” Root says, standing.
“See you tomorrow.” Shaw replies, continuing to eat. Root remains standing for a few moments, looking at Shaw expectantly, but she doesn’t look up. She’s not very good at picking up hints, Root reflects as she leaves the Hall.
***
Root’s third year at Hogwarts begins rather smoothly. Her classes go well, since several of them she had sat through sporadically the previous year, pretending to be one of Shaw’s classmates. She takes a particular interest in Potions, and with Shaw’s help over several nights she acquires a stockpile of ingredients to experiment with on her own. She elects not to rejoin the Slytherin Quidditch team, having found her interest in the sport to be transient, and considering watching Shaw play to be more fun anyway.
She makes acquaintances, if not friends, with her fellow Slytherins. No longer having any expectations of them, she finds their company enjoyable enough at times, especially the first years, who believe anything she tells them. She knows this because she has tested it by feeding them increasingly ridiculous claims that they continue to accept as fact. Her sociability also makes Shaw jealous, which would have made the entire endeavor worthwhile even if it was miserable otherwise.
“Where’s your fan club?” Shaw asks, as Root sits down beside her beneath a large, generally friendly tree on the castle grounds. The day is mildly warm and quite breezy. Root’s hair blows across her face, and she pushes it back and casts a small spell to hold it in place.
“Jealousy isn’t pretty, Sameen,” Root says, despite the evidence sitting right next to her. She leans her back against the trunk of the tree. “Do you want a fan club?”
“Aren’t you my fan club?”
“Yeah,” Root leans forward and pokes Shaw in the shoulder. “So do you like your fan club?”
Shaw turns around with a look half of exasperation and half not. “My fan club’s all right.”
***
As a third year student, Root is allowed to go into the village of Hogsmeade, and she does so on the first available weekend. Shaw has mentally mapped the entire area according to the quality of food in each establishment, and acts as a (mildly surly, which is her normal disposition) guide. Root talks their way into a bar they definitely aren’t old enough to be allowed into, although when the interior reveals no violence or blatant acts of criminality, they leave, feeling somewhat shortchanged.
“Why do you think you got put in Gryffindor?” Root asks as they ride the horseless carriages back to the castle.
“Don’t know. Probably because there was an empty seat.”
“So not for heroism, or bravery?” Root presses, lightly mocking.
“I think the Hat’s just an asshole.”
“I didn’t like it much either,” Root says, leaning over conspiratorially, even though they’re the only ones in their carriage. “Slytherin’s mainly about having the right parents, anyway.”
“Too bad my parents weren’t right,” Shaw says, surprisingly caustically. She kicks the side of the carriage. “Not good enough to get me into Slytherin so I guess I’ll just live with Gryffindor.”
Root frowns. “I don’t have any problem with Gryffindor,” she says, with a bit of an edge.
“Gracious of you.” Shaw snaps back.
Root huffs out an annoyed breath. They don’t talk for the rest of the trip back.
***
Root sits at the Slytherin table for dinner, and Shaw doesn’t join her. Root doesn’t go over to the Gryffindor table either, because she’s not going to be the first one to blink. It’s not her fault Shaw’s so sensitive. Besides, she’ll be just fine on her own.
She spends the next few weeks diligently paying attention in her classes, working through her homework in the library, and angrily brewing potions in her free time, down in the hidden room in the dungeons she’d found. The angrily brewed potions are angry themselves, or so she concludes after the third one explodes on her. Some of the ingredients stain her robes in ways that turn out to be impossible to fully remove, so she ends up just setting that set on fire. Can’t go to classes with robes smelling of illicitly brewed potions.
Her gaggle of first years follow her around relentlessly at first, plying her with questions. Eventually she snaps at them enough times that they scamper off. She wanders out of the Slytherin common room at night, casting unpleasant hexes on statues and walls that she takes a disliking to.
Once she finishes being angry at Shaw for being angry at her, she’s mostly just sad. She hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings.
On one of her nighttime walks, she walks up to the wall of portraits that sit outside the entrance to Gryffindor’s common room. “Hello,” she says to the residents of the portraits. “I’m going to do some vandalism here, so you might want to move away.”
Some time later, the words ‘I’M SORRY’ are scorched in gigantic letters across the walls and portraits. The edges of the letters flicker with silent flame.
Very nicely done, Root thinks.
***
A large cauldron sits near the edge of the chamber, bubbling away with a fire underneath. Beakers of fluid lift themselves up without apparent support and empty their contents into the cauldron. Small bundles of herbs do likewise. Hisses, crackles, and occasional spurts of fluid emit from it. Root sits on the floor at the other side of the room, directing her ingredients to combine themselves from a safe distance. She can’t afford to keeping burning ruined robes.
The door opens, and a few moments later, Shaw sits down beside her.
“They still haven’t figured out how to fix the wall,” she says eventually.
“It looks nicer now, anyway.” Root says.
Shaw looks over at her, and then towards the still-bubbling cauldron. “I just don’t like people talking about my family.”
Root nods. “I don’t really like my family.”
“Sorry.”
The potion begins to spill over the edges of the cauldron, hissing loudly and emitting pungent steam as it makes contact with the floor.
“Is that dangerous?” Shaw asks, gesturing with one foot at the fluid now seeping across the room towards them.
“Probably,” Root says, looking at it with interest. “I’m not really sure what it does.”
They both throw up Shield charms, just as the cauldron explodes, spraying acidic potion and bits of metal around the room. They duck out of the room and pulled the door shut behind them, leaving the contents to cool down a bit on their own.
“Did you write down the recipe?” Shaw asks.
***
Shaw elects to stay at Hogwarts over Christmas, claiming that she needs to focus on her studies, which is blatantly untrue (insofar as she has no intention of doing so, at least), but allows Root to do the same without being entirely by herself in the castle for several weeks. In return, when classes resume, Root makes an ostentatious show of supporting the Gryffindor Quidditch team when they play Slytherin.
Some observers recognize the pattern, and begin to lay low.
The game of escalating generosity mutates into competitive destruction. By the end, though neither could explain exactly how rerouting a section of the plumbing to carry a strangely explosive potion instead of water or burning several thousand effigies of a disliked teacher on the Quidditch field represented a gesture of affection, both were certain that they did.
Shaw’s sitting outside the entrance to Slytherin’s common room when Root flounces herself down beside her. “Detention,” she says. “All next year.”
Shaw nods. “Same here. Separate this time. Guess they don’t believe we still hate each other.”
“Maybe you should try kissing me,” Root suggests.
Shaw twists her mouth and scrunches her eyebrows together. “You think that’ll convince them?”
“Well, we won’t know for sure unless we try.”
Shaw rolls her eyes. “Smooth.”
***
“I’m not convinced it stayed here the whole time,” Shaw says as the line of students weighed down with luggage slowly boards the Hogwarts Express.
Root shrugs. “There’s always next year.”