Duels, Snakes, and Pig-Face
Harry had been allowed to go the following morning, but Madam Pomfry kept Holly another few days to make sure her head was fully healed. By the time she was finally allowed to leave, she was nearly a week behind on her classes and more than a little stressed about it. Madam Pomfry hadn’t let her do anything this time, her head was too badly injured for it. It was only now, Wednesday evening, that she could finally start back on some of her reading.
When she entered the Slytherin common room, it was full of students getting ready for dinner and chatting around small tables or large crackling fireplaces. “Holly! You’re back!” Tracey beamed from a small grouping of tables near the watery window.
“How’s your head?” Isolde asked, as Holly made her way over. Holly plopped down beside Tracey on the little couch. It was only then that she even saw Ginny, tucked away between Isolde and the window, scribbling in her creepy diary.
“Yeah it was really bad, are you really okay? We thought it would be at least a couple more days before you were let out of hospital…” Tracey added, thoughtfully.
Holly tore her eyes off Ginny’s creepy diary and smiled at her other two friends. “I’m fine, really, I just really need to catch up on homework is all…”
“Nah, Hermione and I did all your assignments. I have them right here, see?” Tracey handed Holly a stack of well-organized parchment all done in an impressive forgery of her handwriting. “I think just the reading for Potions and DADA are left, but you were ahead of your reading, weren't you?”
“Yeah, for everything but those two classes!” Holly said with a self-deprecating laugh. Tracey and Isolde laughed with her, too, but Holly couldn’t help eyeing her papers. The handwriting wasn’t the only thing forged, it was like she had written them. The word-choices and the phrasing also sounded like her. “Uh, Trace, this is creepy - how did you guys write these?”
Tracey shrugged. “Hermione, apparently, does most of Ron’s essays so she’s pretty good at making them sound different enough. We just dug out some of your old papers and used that as a reference. I did the handwriting. It’s pretty close, yeah?” She explained, proudly.
“... please don’t use your combined powers for evil. This is scary. But also… thank you.” Holly said.
Tracey grinned. “I cross my heart I won’t,” Tracey swore, crossing an “x” over her heart with her finger.
In the weeks that followed, a craze seemed to have enveloped the school. Students were trading and selling and sending home or out to wizarding catalogs for protective talismans of all shapes and sizes. The news of Colin Creevey seemed to have really shaken everybody up, even in Slytherin, there were several students outside Holly’s immediate group of friends that were scared and bothered by Flint’s terribly supremacist passwords.
Holly already had her mother’s necklace, but in the face of all of the fear running through the school, half of which was aimed at her and her brother, it didn’t feel like enough. Worse yet, she kept thinking that Ginny needed something to keep her safe… something to keep her away from that bloody book…
“Tracey, do you know where your mom found our snake bracelets?” Holly asked one night, as they watched Isolde try to gently remove the diary from Ginny’s grip.
“I’m way ahead of you,” Tracey confessed. “I’m hoping they’ll come with the mail on saturday…” She turned to Holly with a pensive sort of look. “Hermione thinks Draco probably knows something, I think if anyone does though, it’d be Pansey… They aren’t gonna spill though, if we ask, obviously.”
“At most they might know as much as Isolde, but even that isn’t much… I just feel bad asking her…” Holly whispered. They both turned their gazes back to sweet Isolde, who had managed to get the book from Ginny and was running around trying to keep it from her.
Tracey got up and took the book from Isolde and locked it in her chest. “It’s time for bed.” she said, and waited for Ginny, fists-clenched, to climb onto her mattress and pointedly tug her curtains closed. Daphne came in from her nightly shower just then, and the rest of them decided to call it a night.
Three days later, Sunday, the girls sat together by one of the common room fireplaces, reading. The ouroboros bracelets had come the day before and Holly noted that Ginny was reading a normal book and smiling at the pages, the diary left untouched on the coffee table in front of them.
Professor Snape, materialized like a bat with his dramatic black robes that he constantly swished around like wings. He cleared his throat to get all of their attention. “Which of you plans on staying at Hogwarts for the upcoming Holiday break?” he drawled, staring out at the room intensely.
Holly, Tracey, and Ginny all raised their hands. Snape squinted, pulled out a quill and parchment, and jotted down a list of names. Then he read it back to them to ensure he hadn't missed anyone. “Potter, Davis, Weasley, Crabbe, Goyal, Malfoy, Bulstrode, Flint, Morgana, Whittle, and… Fawley. you’re all staying?”
A chorus of “yes”’s filtered through the room.
Snape eyed his list again. “If anyone else intends to stay they have until the end of the day tomorrow to tell me. Inform your classmates.” he said blandly, then turned and disappeared from the room.
Holly looked at her friends. “Why aren't you guys going home? Ginny, I thought you were planning to?” She wondered. “And Tracey, you don’t want to go to your grandparents? Visit your parents? I thought your dad was on the mend…”
Tracey looked down at her lap. “He is but… He told me not to come. Said that he’s not going home without mum and I- I don’t think she’s coming home…” She said, quietly.
“Oh,” Holly felt her own heart drop. Mrs. Davis was so kind and she’d known there was a chance of course, but she just hadn’t wanted to think about it. “I’m so sorry, Trace, Really.”
Isolde and Ginny both crossed to their couch and the three of them hugged Tracey like a bunch of boa constrictors. Tracey sniffled, rubbed her face, and let out a strange strangled, wet sort of laugh. “But Ginny, why aren’t you going home?” She asked, clearly trying to change the subject.
“Oh, no reason, really. Ron just made it sound so fun last year… and he’s staying too, so I thought it could be cool I guess.” she explained, pushing herself up. “I do have something I need to do though, so I’ll see you guys at dinner, okay?” she smiled, and Holly hoped that it meant the bracelet was working.
“Okay,” they all agreed.
A few days later, as Holly and her brother made their way inside after a snowy walk around the grounds, they found a mass of students gathered around the bulletin board in the great hall “They're starting a dueling club!” Seamus shouted, excitedly. Holly was sure he’d set someone on fire if he tried to duel.
“What, do you reckon Slytherin’s monster can duel?” Ron said, shakily, but he seemed interested too. He found Harry and Holly in the back of the crowd. “Could be useful,” he said, glancing between Hermione and them, “shall we go?”
Holly backed away, shaking her head. “Nope, not for me, no thank you!” She squeaked. “I don’t fancy being set on fire by Seamus, thank you.” She turned to go but-
Harry gripped her arm. “Holly,” he said, quietly, “what if he comes back, like last year? What if it’s you that's left alone, this time? Please? Just so you know what to do if…” his eyes were pleading. They didn’t talk about what had happened the year before very often. It was too painful, but… his eyes were pleading. He was scared for her.
Holly sighed, defeated. “Fine,” she muttered, “but don’t be surprised when I make a fool of myself.”
Defense was by far Holly’s worst subject. Harry was at the top of their year in it. But Holly honestly sucked. Madam Pomfry said she was a born healer. Maybe that was why. She didn’t like hurting people. Well, except for Pansy Parkinson. Holly would love to give her another black eye…
Harry relaxed, offering her a grateful smile. “Thank you.” He said, earnestly.
At eight, most of the school made their way back to the great hall. They carried nothing but their wands. Most students murmured excitedly, though, Holly felt more like hiding than jumping.
Tracy, who actually did seem excited, nudged Holly. “I wonder what Lockhart’s gonna show us first!” She said, eagerly. Tracy was, like every other girl, infatuated with their DADA Professor. Holly couldn’t stand him. But then, she might have felt differently if she’d gone into that bookshop having read any of his memoirs. They were objectively quite impressive.
“Lockhart? If he’s heading this club I want to be here even less…” Holly muttered. Sure enough, not a minute had passed before Lockhart and Snape appeared.
Lockhart waved a hand to silence the school. “Can everyone see me? Can you all hear me? Excellent! Now, Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little dueling club to train you all, in case you should ever need to defend yourselves, as I myself have done on countless occasions - for details see my published works.” He flashed a smile that seemed to dazzle the crowd. It made Holly want to throw something at his head. “Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape,” Lockhart went on, earning a few snickers. “He tells me he knows a tiny little bit about dueling himself and has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration before we begin. Now- I don’t want any of you youngsters to worry. You’ll still have your potions Professor when I’m through with him!”
Holly didn’t miss the predatory smile Snape was attempting to fight back. Just there, at the corner of his mouth, like a viper about to lunge for the kill.
And as Lockhart continued to explain more about himself than the duel, Snape only seemed to bare his teeth more at the man. They took their stances, Lockhart still talking and looking as though he didn’t suspect for a second that Snape was going to do anything other than throw a miss-aimed hex his way.
“Expelliarmus!” Snape said, before Lockhart could even open his mouth with a spell.
Lockhart went flying back, falling to the ground in a heap.
Tracy gasped. “I hope he’s alright!” She said, clutching a hand over her heart.
Holly rolled her eyes. “I don’t. If he’s hurt badly we might get a new teacher.”
Lockhart, disappointingly, stumbled to his feet. He looked a mess with his hair on end (hat gone), and he was shaking from head to toe. “Well there you have it! That was a disarming charm. As you see, I’ve lost my wand - ah, thank you miss brown - yes, an excellent idea to show them that, Professor Snape, but if you don’t mind me saying it was *pretty obvious* what you were about to do. If I had wanted to stop you it would have been only too easy, however, I felt it would be instructive to let them see ....”
Lockhart seemed to finally have noticed Snape’s murderous intent, because he very suddenly decided that it was now time to let the students try. He and Snape moved into the crowd and began partnering students together. Holly snickered when he split Ron and Harry up, pitting her brother against Draco (it was like he got a kick out of their constant squabbling). But then he turned on her and gestured for Pansy-looked-better-with-no-hair-and-a-black-eye-Parkinson.
And really, Holly was no good with defensive magic. She could always… bite Pansy, if she absolutely had to.
There are three types of Slytherin, Holly had realized. Those who sought power and prestige and thought it was the same thing as success, those people did not care who’s bones the ladder upwards was crafted from. There were those who wore their sarcasm as a mask, hiding every insecurity they had, but would climb to the top with others on their backs and they’d do it without complaining. And, there were sweet ones, kind at heart, and studious, but ambitious nonetheless, driven by dreams and curiosity.
Pansy Parkinson was the first. Holly had always known it, of course, but never was it more apparent than when pansy summoned a bloody bludger to shoot at Holly’s head.
Holly, acting on instinct, responded with a hair removal charm Madam Pomfry had taught her for dressing wounds. Rather than making Pansy go bald (again), the charm shaved a thick ribbon of spirals down the middle of her head. It was like a toddler got hold of the clippers only, the pattern was too smooth and delicate. A mirror of the unicorn hair’s pattern. But… ugly, also.
With an indignant scream, Pansy retaliated with “Incendio!” Holly felt the ends of her hair heat, Heat, HEAT until they burned through her robes and into her skin. She screamed, and Snape quickly doused her with a bucket of water that floated above her head until the flames were entirely gone.
In a fit of rage, and pain, Holly screamed “Serpensortia!” And a cobra flew from her wand, landing on the ground between them and quickly advancing.
Through all of this, they had amassed a crowd of onlookers. Other students encircled them, morbid curiosity drawing them near at the sight of flames, but pushing them all to take a step back at the venomous snake. Gasps went out among the other students, and terrified whispers.
Pansy, too, was terrified.
“Do not bite her!” Holly sort of cried to the snake, realizing that while she’d only meant to summon a garter or something harmless like that, she'd just shot a venomous viper at her classmate. She lowered her wand and knelt so she was closer to the snake’s eye-level.
“It’s alright,” she heard Harry say, as he creeped up to the serpent. “You don't need to hurt anyone, so long as you're calm, nobody will hurt you.” he assured it.
“I’m sorry I brought you here, please don’t hurt her,” Holly added.
“Holly…” Isolde said from the front of the crowd, “what are you doing?”
Holly looked over at her friend. She stared back, afraid. She hadn’t even been afraid for a moment after Mrs. Norris. But now? When Holly and her brother had gotten the snake to calm down..?
Holly turned back to the snake and lifted her wand. “Fereverto!” she recited and the snake transformed into a crystal goblet with a snake embossed along the rim. She picked it up and turned to Harry. “I didn’t mean to summon a viper!” she whispered, “just a garter or something to scare her not…” she looked back at Isolde, then the rest of her friends, and then her professors. Even Snape looked slightly alarmed.
Isolde took Holly’s hand and pulled her through the crowd. People parted for them, whispering and watching but staying well clear of them. Hermione and Ron had grabbed Harry as well, but it was only when Tracey pulled open an empty classroom door that Holly even realized she was with them at all. “In here!” she hissed.
Isolde dragged Holly into the room, and Hermione and Ron half threw Harry inside,slamming the door closed behind them as they followed. “Holly you can’t just go around throwing snakes and speaking Parselmouth with all that's going on right now!” Tracey scolded, tugging at her hair.
“She’s right, that was really reckless. Now the whole school thinks you’re the heirs of slytherin!” Isolde spoke calmly and quietly. “You have to keep those sorts of things to yourself. Trust me…”
“Yeah, and besides, why didn’t you tell us?” demanded Ron of Harry, looking hurt.
“Why didn’t I realize sooner!” Hermione exclaimed. “Last year, under the teacher's stands, Holly said something to me in parselmouth only I didn’t know what it was at the time! Oh this is bad! This is really really bad!”
Holly frowned. “I did?” she couldn’t remember ever speaking any other language, let alone parselmouth…
“Uh… what’s a parselmouth?” asked Harry, looking between every other face in the room in confusion.
“It means you can talk to snakes.” Ron explained.
“Yes,” Isolde confirmed. “Like Salezar Slytheryn and… The Dark Lord…”
“Oh.” said Harry quietly.
“What do we do?” Holly asked, desperately hoping somebody in that room knew, but all she saw were grim faces staring back at her.