Gryffindor, oh Gryffindor!
“No. You won’t be leaving until I say so.”
“But we won! They’re celebrating right now and I have to be there!”
“Get your behind back on the bed, Mr Wood. I’m not playing about this.”
“Surely it would be in my best interest to be with the others? I would die here in this bed otherwise!”
“I know how to cast the Petrificus charm, boy. Don’t tempt me.”
“Oh, come on! You wouldn’t–!”
“Oh, I would. Glad it would be you at the receiving end, too. Too stubborn for your own good. It’s the same every time! I have to chase you around the school because you think a game like quidditch is more important than your life. If you wish to take part in the festivities, then maybe you should learn to play without getting knocked off your broom.”
“EY? I beg your pardon, Madam! I am very good at quidditch, thank you very much. If you don’t want to heal broken bones or concussed heads then maybe we should do something about the lunatics in the Slytherin team who have no problems playing dirty and causing these injuries!”
“Don’t you raise your voice at me, young man,” chastised Madam Pomfrey's unimpressed voice. Though her tone shifted a bit when she relented and said: “I’ll have a word with Professor Snape. But you-”, and there was a short break emphasised by a soft ‘umphf‘as if this Mr Wood had been forcefully pushed back into his hospital bed, “-will stay here. If this bed is empty when I come back from the medicine cupboard, help me Merlin, you won’t be playing quidditch for the rest of the season.”
“Fine! Fine. I’ll stay for a bit longer but I really do have to go as soon as possible.”
Madam Pomfrey said nothing, but one could imagine the severe look on her face even without seeing it. Sharp clicking footsteps retreated from the otherwise quiet room. When only the muttering of the boy named Oliver and the soft snoring of someone else a little ways away could be heard, Catallena jumped to action.
Or rather stumbled. She opened her eyelids as far as they would open and peeled herself from the thin blankets covering her. She didn’t have time to fully take in the medical wing in her haste. She didn’t really look at Wood either– the older boy sitting on a bed on the opposite side of the room, wearing a bandage over his forehead. He was startled by Catallena’s burst of energy. The girl thought to have been sleeping had tripped and fallen with her leg entangled in the blanket.
“Wow. You alright? Should I get Madam Pomfrey?” asked Wood. He glanced at the office in the far corner of the room. Through its glass window he could see the witch searching for and measuring potions into little cups on a tray. She seemed occupied enough, so he clambered out of his bed to help the small girl on the floor. The both of them blinked through their respective headaches and fumbled with the blanket wrapped around the little witch’s foot in knots.
“Is something the matter?” Wood repeated his concern, looking for any physical signs or reasons for why the girl was in the hospital wing to begin with. He knew of the girl, of course. He recognized her immediately as no one else at the school (or anywhere else he knew, to be fair) happened to have blue hair. Additionally, there were rumours of her that even he had managed to catch despite his busy schedule. He just had never really met her between his quidditch practice and classes.
Catallena nodded as an answer, never looking up.
“What is it? Does it hurt?” He could see no immediate injuries, but the girl did look very sickly. They managed to get Catallena rid of her confinement, only losing one of her socks in the impressive depths of the blanket in the process.
“I have detention,” she simply provided, before dashing out of the medical wing entirely, leaving the confused boy behind.
“That insufferable– ! I told him not to leave and what does he do as soon as I turn my back on him– ” Madam Pomfrey complained, clearly frustrated. Her footsteps were heavier than before as she stomped back into the big room.
“Now, I didn’t leave, Madam Pomfrey,” Wood chuckled from behind Catallena’s bed and managed to pull himself onto his feet so he could stagger back to his own bed. “Someone else might’ve, though.” His eyes glinted with humour.
Madam Pofrey set her tray of medicine onto a side table and helped the boy back into a lying position. “What?” Her eyes flew back to the bed opposite them. “Why is that bed empty?” Then recognition flashed across her features and she exclaimed with disappointment: “Oh, where did the girl go, Wood?”
“Detention, apparently,” Wood couldn’t help himself and laughed at the witch who looked as though steam might start pouring from underneath her salt and pepper hair and the crisp white medi-witch cap. The woman walked briskly over to the bed and picked up the blanket on the floor next to it, making a light pink sock fall to the ground.
“Should’ve probably used the Petrificus charm, eh?” he teased.
The door to the transfiguration classroom was already open and waiting for Catallena. Inside, Professor McGonagall sat at her desk, a picture familiar from Catallena’s previous detention with the woman.
“I was beginning to think you were avoiding your detention, Miss Nocturne.” Her eyes were slightly squinted behind her glasses which sat atop her raised nose.
“Sorry,” Catallena apologised, nervously tugging at her hair and looking at the dark mahogany floor boards. She thought of telling the witch that she had been held in the medical wing of the castle but thought better of it. McGonagall might’ve made her go back otherwise. The girl looked pathetic enough for the older woman to accept her apology with a furrowed brow. She was beckoned to the front of the class.
“It’s quite alright. You will only be writing lines today,” said McGonagall, waving to the little desk next to hers. It was equipped with some parchment, a quill and ink. “‘I will never break curfew again’ should suffice. Until that bit of parchment is filled.” And when Catallena was firmly planted in her seat, the professor turned back to her own work – a letter to a brooms manufacturer, complaining about potentially dangerous Nimbus 2000s.
Catallena said nothing but took the quill into her hand and dipped it into the pot of ink. She did her best to write neatly despite her awfully shaky hands and throbbing headache. Her letters were loopy in odd places as usual.
I will never break curfew again.
I will never break curfew again.
I will never break curfew again.
I will never break curfew again.
I will never break curfew again.
Though her thoughts wandered far away from the repeated writing. They were dark and frightening, starring the skeletal figure of Death looming over the quidditch pitch, waiting for Harry to fall into its hungry belly.
I will never break curfew again.
I will never break curfew agaiin.
I wll nev
Catallena gasped and dropped her quill, her eyes darting to the far left corner of the classroom where the shadows looked slightly darker than anywhere else. She thought she had seen Death there, inching slowly closer to her little desk but disappearing as soon as Catallena noticed it. She kept staring at the corner, not daring to even blink. Her breath was ragged. It kept getting caught half way down to her stinging lungs.
Nothing happened. No face appeared in the shadows. No clawed hands. No cloak. There was simply a bookcase filled with books and failed transfigurations like the hairy spoon or the iridescent shards of soap bubbles made of glass. Catallena looked around the room but found no sign of Death. She turned to McGonagall who was so engrossed in her letter that she hadn’t noticed anything.
The girl looked down at her parchment where a splotch of ink had appeared under the discarded quill. Little shiny droplets littered the paper, glinting in the dull lighting like those dead eyes she so detested seeing. She sat there for a while trying to catch her breath and trying to will her hand to move to the quill. When she managed to finally pick it up again, her hands were even more uncertain than before. Carefully, she continued her writing so as to not disturb the little pools of ink.
I will nevr break curfiew again.. ..
I will never break curfew . .’´..` again
I will never brek curfew .:’ again.
I vill never break . .`curfew ayain.
I will never .. breakc
McGonagall doesn’t seem at all disturbed by Death’s earlier appearance at the pitch. No one else at the game seemed as horrified at the situation as they should have been, either. In fact, Hermione had asked her what the matter was as if she hadn’t seen Death at all.
Only two options, Catallena thought. Either everyone can see the things she sees and she’s the only one who finds it as disturbing and scary as she does, or she’s the only one able to see what is invisible to others.
There is another option, she thought and shook as her writing got more and more incomprehensible. She’s being haunted.
Or maybe she’s losing her mind. A bit too early for that, wouldn’t you think, she fretted. I’m only eleven. You never hear about children who have gone mad. Her quill scratched sharply at the parchment. You don’t really hear about people who are able to see Death too often, either.
Or their dead mother in a mirror.
The door to the transfiguration classroom burst open with great force, banging against a wall and scaring Catallena so badly she actually let out a squeak and fully knocked her pot of ink over her parchment and left hand. Her heart continued to beat in her chest rapidly even when the intruder turned out to be Professor Snape.
“You requested me,” Snape said in a near snarl, his face tightened in what Catallena recognised as annoyance and anger. She shrunk back into her seat.
“Oh- Yes, Severus. I did,” McGonagall huffed after she had recovered from her own surprise. She waved her wand and Catallena’s ink pot righted itself and the ink on her hand and parchment disappeared back into it. “I have a request for you, if you’ve recovered from earlier,” she continued, the later part curled into a question.
Snape lowered his chin. Upon noticing Nocturne’s presence, the fire in his eyes died down a little, though the smell of his previously burned cloak was still fresh in his mind. He looked at her face, taking note of its paleness and gauntness.
For a moment Catallena worried that Snape would be angry at her and Hermione for having started the fire in the quidditch stand, but there was no such recognition in Snape’s expression. Catallena was happy to not be punished by Snape’s anger.
“Miss Nocturne,” Snape acknowledged before turning back to McGonagall. He ignored her question and instead asked, clearly irritated: “And what might your request be?”
As Professor McGonagall folded her now complete letter and tucked it into an envelope that she finished off with a quick signature and address, she responded: “A Sleeping draught for Miss Nocturne here who cannot seem to follow the curfew.” She stood up and gave the letter to the grey owl sitting on a perch next to her desk, letting the bird fly out of the window after a quick scratch above its beak.
Snape looked back over at the young witch sunken into her seat and agreed shortly. He turned on his heels (still favouring one over the injured one) and walked briskly to his dungeons to brew a stock of Sleeping draughts. Catallena was let out of her detention and instructed to claim the potions from the potions classroom before curfew. McGonagall couldn’t emphasize the before curfew part enough.
The walk from the transfiguration classroom was frightening. The halls were emptier than usual since many students and teachers had gone to Hogsmeade –the wizarding village near Hogwarts equipped with plenty of places to celebrate Gryffindor’s win (namely the Three Broomsticks Inn). Catallena jumped at every shadow and recoiled at every cat that suddenly walked from around a corner.
When she saw two students going up a staircase she hadn’t gone up before, she decided that following them was safer than going down another path alone. She kept at a good distance and tiptoed quietly so as to hopefully stay unnoticed by the pair. She didn’t really feel like getting jinxed or thrown to the ground anyway.
She met lots of new portraits and made sure to still be polite despite her state, curtseying every couple of steps while keeping the pair of students in red robes in her periphery. The longer she followed the students the more portraits of former Gryffindors appeared – all of whom were in great moods. Gryffindor’s win in the quidditch match against Slytherin was being celebrated in paintings of dinner parties and beautiful living rooms, on battlefields and at yule balls. A band had gathered in one painting down the hall, playing cheerful music.
A lady sang a high pitched song to the band’s music. The two students stopped in front of the lady and for a while they complained and begged loudly for her to stop singing and to let them through. Catallena saw how the offended portrait finally swung to the side to reveal an opening in the wall behind it. The two then ducked into the hole from which a song carried into the corridor outside.
Gryffindor, oh Gryffindor!
Snakes fear Wood’s, the Weasleys’ roar!
Johnson, Spinnet, Bell the chaser,
Our seeker Potter made the lion the winner!~
The chanting got muffled when the portrait returned to its place to cover the opening. The lady cleared her throat before continuing her song.
Catallena waited for a while, weighing her options. She didn’t want to go back the way she came alone. It was getting darker in the castle. The sun was steadily sinking closer to where the forbidden forest kissed the sky since it was well after noon. Shadows move strangely when the sun dances lower, the girl knew.
Besides, Catallena was so tired she didn’t think she should walk up the Ravenclaw tower stairs anyway. She couldn’t go there to wait for the Sleeping draught to be ready, then walk all the way to the dungeons and then once more back up to the tower. She could wait here instead, she supposed.
For some reason unfamiliar to her, she wanted to see Harry. He was a Gryffindor, Catallena remembered. She should see if he was alright and if he had maybe seen the same things she had seen during the game. She should see Hermione too, she thought seriously. Catallena hadn’t seen her since the fire was set on Snape’s robes and Catallena lost consciousness. Maybe she should see Ron too, although she wasn’t sure he would like seeing her still.
When the door remained shut and no one else appeared in the corridor, she moved from behind the corner and approached the lady’s portrait. The lady was deep in a performance, belting slightly off pitch and heaving great breaths that made the pink silk robes she was wearing puff out like a pufferfish would. Catallena stopped right in front of the painting and watched as she seemed to never tire or pipe down.
In between songs, Catallena seized her opportunity: “Sorry?”
The lady who was about to sing some more stopped herself and bent to look down, shaking her chocolate brown curls at the little girl. “Yes?”
Catallena curtsied, which pleased the lady. “May I get in?” she tried hopefully.
The lady curtsied back but didn’t acknowledge the girl’s question. “A great day for the Gryffindors, isn’t it? I wrote my own song about the feat, of course! Would you like to hear it? Oh, here I go!”
The lady broke into song again and Catallena couldn’t help but to listen. She was too shy and too scared to interrupt the song. She didn’t want to offend her. The lady wasn’t so terrible, anyway. In fact, Catallena quite liked her singing and ended up sitting down to enjoy it (and to rest her numb feet).
After the last words of the song echoed in the Gryffindor tower corridor, Catallena clapped her hands until the lady had said all of her thank you’s and you’re welcome’s.
“Let’s see, there’s another song that would fit the occasion. It’s not my own work and it’s quite a bit older, but it does ring quite beautifully! –”
“Maybe… Maybe I could listen to it later. I would like to go in…” Catallena trailed off quietly, earning a raised eyebrow from the lady.
“Go in? To the Gryffindor common room? I don’t think you’re a Gryffindor, are you?”
“No.”
“Well, do you have the password?”
“Password?”
“Yes. Password.”
“I don’t.”
“You don’t. How were you planning on getting inside, then?”
“Do you have a riddle?”
“A riddle? You must be a Ravenclaw! Silly little girl, that is not how you get to the other common rooms.” The lady was laughing now, her laugh as piercing as her singing. “If you don’t know the password then I can’t let you in.”
Catallena didn’t dare argue back. Instead, she sat listening to the portrait’s continued singing and waiting for someone else to hopefully go in or come out of the portrait. In between songs and during the quieter parts the girl could hear laughter, cheering and chanting from behind the portrait, but the lady stayed firmly in her spot guarding the exit.
Maybe it wasn’t a good idea to see the three Gryffindors anyway. Catallena was a Ravenclaw. They weren’t her friends, were they? The three of them seemed to have something great between the three of them – something they wanted to keep secret from Catallena. That something concerned Professor Snape, apparently.
But during her wait she couldn’t help but imagine what secrets the common room held. What would it be like to be a Gryffindor, she wondered. Catallena imagined the coziest, happiest red and gold hall she could muster. Then she imagined all of the happy people in it, dancing and celebrating. She imagined a big magical lion that was soft and sweet like Kisa. When a loud shout and a crashing sound followed by cheering carried over to her, she imagined someone hanging from a chandelier and jumping down onto a cake, spilling the whipped cream onto everyone. She imagined Harry and his friends in the middle of it all, carried on the backs of Fred and George, eating all the cake they could ever want.
“Hello? You there, Ravenclaw! Is my singing so boring that you would fall asleep listening to it?”
Catallena opened her eyes with a start. The lady came back into her view, looking offended and huffy. The girl blinked the sleep out of her eyes, rubbed them too, and then looked back up at the painted woman.
“Sorry,” she quickly apologised and the lady softened a little bit, though the corners of her mouth were drawn in a frown. “No need. No one here appreciates the art that is my singing, anyhow.” She tried sounding dismissive, but failed even in the eyes of Catallena.
“I liked the singing.”
“Did you really?” The brush strokes on the lady’s cheeks were redder than they had been before. “It made you tired? Like a lullaby? Oh well – in that case!”
Catallena agreed. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep. She simply hadn’t felt so scared of falling asleep here in the corridor. In retrospect, she felt quite fearful knowing that she hadn’t been keeping a closer eye on the shadows around her.
Now that she was awake, she noticed that the torches mounted on the walls surrounding her flickered in the otherwise dark hallway. No sunlight came in through the few windows as the sun had gone down entirely, leaving behind lots of twinkling stars and a moon that wasn’t nearly as bright as the sun had been. Curfew had come and gone and the dark hallways wouldn’t be going away anytime soon.
Oh. The Sleeping draughts.
“Bye,” Catallena suddenly bid before forcing her feet to carry her to the end of the corridor. The lady called after her, yelling her confused goodbyes and wishing for her return.
Catallena shuffled back the way she came, mentally chastising herself for having fallen asleep. She made her way to the dungeons fairly slowly, blaming herself for her mistake and imagining her punishment for being late. She wasn’t made any faster by the way she hopped from one reflection of light to the other, making sure that she wouldn’t step onto any parts of the floor that weren’t lit up by torches.
The dungeons were much darker with only a few torches here and there. Catallena held her eyes open with her fingers on her eyelids, making sure she wouldn’t blink and miss any movement. She was even jumpier, because she could hear water in the walls and the yelling from what she assumed must be the Slytherin common room. She didn’t want to go into that one, that was sure.
The door to the potions classroom was closed but it swung open the moment Catallena stepped foot in front of it.
“Miss Nocturne,” Professor Snape hissed. Catallena slipped into the room from underneath his arm that was holding the door open, glad to be out of the murky dungeon corridor and revelling in the light provided by one of the brewing stations.
“You were told to come before curfew. Do you find following simple instructions that difficult?” He turned in the doorway to catch the girl hurrying to the table and stopping right in front of it, looking up at the few candles on it. Something smelly brewed in a cauldron on top of the table.
She thought about his question after she had appreciated the light long enough. Catallena supposed that she did find it difficult to follow simple instructions. It had been a simple enough instruction, hadn’t it? She hadn’t meant to disobey her professors this time, but such rules and expectations – like curfews – never made much sense to her anyways.
“I asked you a question,” Snape’s voice grew more pressing as he shut the door and stalked closer to the girl.
“I guess so,” Catallena said airily, deep in thought.
Snape thought her answer sounded snarky, which made him more enraged. He spun the girl around by her shoulders and bent down to face her, scowling.
“I would implore you to answer my question with even an ounce of respect. Or is that too much to ask from you, too?” His voice was raised and angered.
Silence settled between them.
This close to her face he saw the way her eyebrows drew together and the tears that built in her wide eyes as if she was pained.
He saw the old healed scars that were slightly discolored and raised but otherwise concealed spread over her cheeks and nose. There was a small dent on the left side of her forehead close to her hairline. Even in the dark room he noticed the relatively new bruise on her chin and the bloodied teeth marks on her lower lip now that she was so close and her hair was out of the way. The bruises matched the deep blueish purple and grey of the skin around her eyes.
Most disturbingly, he saw his own reflection in her mirror-like eyes, scary and threatening. His dark hair was partly in his black eyes and his teeth were bared for her to see.
The mirror image backed away slightly, its harsh lines softened and regretful.
He felt the bones of her sharp shoulders through her thick knit sweater, too small between his big palms. He let go and she reeled backward, hitting the back of her neck on the table behind her. Snape tried to steady her, but was stopped by the way she shrunk back even more.
For a long while they both tried to mentally catch up with the situation, not saying or doing anything. Only the bubbling of potions could be heard. Catallena wanted to apologise after swallowing down her tears of surprise and fear, but her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth. Snape couldn’t bring himself to say it either, though he did feel it.
Here he was blowing up at Miss Nocturne when he knew the girl wasn't well. He didn't know what exactly was the matter with her, but her appearance and demeanour... they concerned him from time to time. He had tried talking with her Head of House about his concerns, hadn't he? Though maybe not as pressingly as the issue warranted, he now reconsidered.Even wrapped up in his anger he could see how wounded the girl is.
He had let the day’s events cloud his judgement toward the situation. His anger started at breakfast, seeing the Nocturne girl with Harry Potter and his friends at the Gryffindor table. (Snape couldn’t and wouldn’t explain why it angered him so.) The bewitched broom and the fire set on his robes during the quidditch match was fuel to his growing anger. Slytherin losing the game didn’t help; the whining and moaning in the Slytherin dungeons ever since the morning was grating on his nerves. Miss Nocturne’s severe tardiness had been enough to push him over the edge and he wasn’t proud of it.
The potion in the cauldron behind Catallena foamed over its brim. It sizzled and burned in the small flames under it, creating a thick smoke that smelled like wet soil and blood. Catallena watched as Professor Snape quickly walked over to the other side of the table, lifted the cauldron onto another stand away from the flames and waved his wand with a simple cleaning incantation to clean the mess.
Snape leaned with his palms against the table, seemingly gathering himself. The crease between his eyebrows was alarmingly deep, Catallena noticed.
“Is it ruined?”
Snape’s eyes snapped to the girl opposite him who was only barely tall enough to see over the table. Of all questions… Of all things she could have started with… After how he had just acted?
“Yes,” he answered, still bewildered.
“What was it?” she asked quietly.
“Bloodroot poison. I’ll have to brew another,” Snape mumbled. Bewildered still, he watched the girl nod thoughtfully before she climbed onto a chair on her side of the table. Once settled, she watched on, as if waiting for him to start brewing right then and there. She sniffled and wiped a tear that had fallen onto her cheek with her sleeve and Snape had no choice but to begin brewing right then and there.
Similar to how they had spent that one other night brewing potions, Catallena sat mutely in her seat, watching the Potion Master’s every move. He gathered ingredients, chopped them, crushed them, extracted them and combined them in a new cauldron. It was uncomfortable for a while, yes, but they soon got lost in the activity and the incident from before was mostly forgotten about.
Though as a wordless apology, Catallena was later escorted out of the dungeons and to her common room’s entrance without any mention of the word ‘detention’. Professor Snape made sure that the girl drank a Sleeping draught just before disappearing behind the raven statue and Catallena found herself questioning Harry’s words from the previous morning. Snape wouldn’t have let the troll loose in the dungeons on Hallowe’en, would he? And what reason would the professor have had to knock Harry off his broom during quidditch?
Snape was scary but he wasn’t evil, thought Catallena deliriously before slipping into a dreamless sleep in her own bed, for a change. He wouldn’t be. Right?