Diospyros

Harry carefully poured potassium around the trophy room, not letting much of it accumulate in clumps. The smell wasn't very pleasant, but he stuck around to watch the ice bubble, putting on silicone gloves and grabbing a bucket and shovel preemptively.

He was on the last night of his detention, still serving a long week for having left the entire Hogwarts body temporarily deaf and others temporarily partially deaf (in this case, Zabini and MacDougal). At another time he might have thought it was an exaggerated punishment for just that, but he had no regrets or self-indulgence, so he wasn't too bothered about having to do work after school.

The other students had all rushed home the day before; everyone, with the notable exceptions of a few crazy, reckless and naive people, had taken the train back to London to spend Christmas and New Year with their relatives. The fear of something that even killed a ghost made all possible courage drain from the students, leading them to completely fill out each sheet of the list of people who would return home. Harry didn't have much of a choice in the matter, what with being in detention and all.

The ice bubbles around them, liquefying and turning into a strange soup that Harry scooped up using the shovel and placing it in the plastic bucket. What Filch would do with the potash soup was something he didn't care about, although he could recommend it to Professor Sprout for use in the greenhouses with the mandrakes.

Once the defrost collection was over, Harry cleaned the prizes and quickly polished them, an old practice of guiding his hands with the cloth across the golden surfaces. T.M. Riddle's shield has certainly never shone as brightly as it does now. Satisfied with his work, Harry spread a mixture of sand and salt across the floor, creating a thin layer on the floor and leaving the hallway, taking the materials with him.

Filch was not in a good mood when he welcomed him back into his office to put away the supplies and collect the soup from the bucket. In fact, he seemed even less receptive to Harry since he caught the boy with his mail the other day.

— I'm done, Mr. Filch — Harry declared, placing the shovel, bucket and cans of wax, rags and bags of dust in the corner.

— All? – the caretaker asked suspiciously, giving him a sour look.

— All — Harry nodded. – The defrost is still in the bucket. I thought it would be good to give it to Professor Sprout to use on the plants in the greenhouses.

— That's not your concern — Filch scoffed, but didn't deny the idea. – Leave the bucket there. Save the rest and you can go.

The caretaker's watchful eye didn't go unnoticed by Harry, but he wasn't naive enough not to dust off his shovel before returning. The caretaker was looking for anything to fight with him now. Mrs. Norris seemed to be getting irritated with her owner, but she just watched him from her place on a shelf.

Dim lighting from torches made his way through the cold, dark corridors of the basement; the heat couldn't penetrate the air, so there was nothing that could make it worth resting in the corridor, even with so many torches gathered. In the hallway to the right, a pile of barrels piled up at the end of the path, preceded by a picture of a fruit basket. Harry tickled the pear painting until it perked up and opened its cartoonish mouth, giving a breathless laugh.

The house-elves, working in dozens, rushed to the painting's door and bent anxiously in front of Harry, their Hogwarts crest pillowcases flopping over and looking like a cluster of balloons.

— Mister Potter, sir! What can we do for you? – a young elf, maybe nine years old, asked anxiously in front of the other elves.

— Some cocoa, Andy, please — Harry asked.

— Yes, sir!

The elves excitedly pulled him close to the furnace, which emitted scorching heat, and placed him on a stool around one of the four tables that replicated the ones in the Great Hall. Next to him, holding a very large blue mug filled with marshmallows until it was a small pile, was a small girl with dirty blonde hair and huge blue eyes, who was trying to put even more marshmallows into the cup.

— Hello – Harry greeted her.

The girl took her eyes off the cup and turned them to Harry. She looked like a tarsier, the disproportions between her eyes and body, an immeasurably deep glow behind her irises. Harry felt, in an involuntary and strange way, a nostalgia for a long time, which calmed his superficial thoughts and relaxed his entire body.

— Hello Din – the girl greeted him. – It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

— Sorry, but have we met before? – Harry asked, curious. He would certainly remember someone like her.

— Ah – the girl said simply. – Um... I don't think so. I'm Luna Lovegood. You can just call me Luna.

— Luna – the boy repeated. – I'm Harry, son of James from Potter. You can just call me Harry.

The girl hummed, and placed another marshmallow into the cup. She held it by the handle and turned it around, staying like that for a few seconds.

— See you later, Harry Potter — There was something different in the girl's voice; a strange thing, new, but at the same time old, and terribly right for Harry.

— See you later, Luna Lovegood — Harry said goodbye to the girl, who left the kitchen gracefully, her pockets filled with elf goodies and saying goodbye to them with ease. Her cup was completely empty on the table.

Dinner had been plentiful, and even though it was brought forward so he could serve detention, he was still half full from the pies he ate, cocoa being his last consumption of the day, even though he had received several butter tarts from the elves. The only thing he did as soon as he arrived in the Slytherin Dungeon was throw himself into the armchair next to the fireplace, snuggling into it until he almost disappeared. The upholstery seemed to lovingly hug him back, all the muscles perfectly fitted.

— Honestly, Goyle, if you were slower you would walk backwards. – Malfoy, who was entering the common room with Crabbe and Goyle in tow, complained as he threw himself onto one of the leather sofas spread out in front of the fireplace, a diffuse banging noise reaching Harry.

Crabbe and Goyle sat next to him, if the creaking meant anything, but Harry continued to watch the flames crackle in the fireplace, silently.

— Ah — Draco seemed to remember something. – Wait here. – he said to Crabbe and Goyle. – I’ll go get it, my dad just told me to...

Draco's footsteps were quickly lost, echoing towards the dormitories, leaving the other two boys sitting on the sofa and making noise in restless shuffling. Harry noticed a minute's delay before Draco came back, speaking in a very exultant tone.

— This will make you laugh.

And sure enough, Crabbe gave a quick, strange, strangled little laugh that sounded the most horrible Harry had heard all year.

— So? – asked Draco impatiently after a while. – Don't you think it's funny?

—Ha, ha, ha – laughed Goyle, clearly discouraged.

— Arthur Weasley likes Muggles so much that he should break his wand and go join them — said Draco dismissively. – From the way they behave, you can’t even say that the Weasleys are purebloods.

Harry frowned, tilting his head to the right, towards Draco.

—What's the matter, Crabbe? – asked the blonde with a lot of harshness in his voice.

— Stomachache – Caleb grunted.

— Then go to the hospital wing and kick those mudbloods for me – Draco said, stifling a laugh. – You know, I'm surprised that the Daily Prophet hasn't reported on all these attacks yet – he continued, thoughtfully. – I suppose Dumbledore is trying to hush up the case. He's going to be fired if this doesn't stop soon. My dad says Dumbledore was the worst thing that ever happened to Hogwarts. He loves Muggles. A decent director would never let scum like Creevey in.

Harry grew tired of hearing it.

In an instant, Draco found himself tied to the spot he was in, black and brown ropes extending from the upholstery and wooden body of the sofa. They clamped securely around his wrists and feet, keeping them pressed against the seat.

— Potter! – His name seemed common in the squeaky voice of the blonde boy recently. – Stop it!

— Shut up. – Harry said coldly, interrupting any lamentation from the other boy. – You think a lot about yourself, Malfoy, thinking you're very important. Always with your nose too high up, shouting at others for any nonsense that you don't like, offending everyone who doesn't fulfill a petty and pathetic requirement of your stupid and prejudiced ideology. I'm going to tell you one thing, one thing that you should always keep with you when you think about offending others for whatever reason: the shit here is your father, not you. You're going to crack yourself up if you think you can use his name to get out of a good spanking not if, but when the wrong person gets pissed off with your nonsense. So take this soup you call brain with the shapeless mass of Crabbe and Goyle and go to your...

The words stopped in Harry's throat, his mouth closing with an audible clack. Adrien and Ron were there, on the next sofa, sitting, silently watching him threaten Draco. There was, over them, a strange layer of something of an indistinguishable color in nature, in a form impossible to understand within the rainbow. Even in the confusion of colors, it was still possible to make out their faces and the Slytherin crest on each of their ties.

An intense anger slid through Harry's chest, without apparent cause or precession, flowing through his veins and turning his entire face red.

— What. Are. You. Doing. Here?! – Harry hissed threateningly at the Gryffindors, who stood up and retreated.

— W-What? – Ron, confused, asked. – We sleep here!

Harry's anger crackled inside his stomach, and his heart beat in a fierce fury. The snakes in the common room hissed excitedly, irrationally, in a cacophony of hisses. A wave of the hand and the two boys found themselves outside the common room, at the dungeon door, scared and confused. When they realized the situation again, they were hanging upside down from the torch in front of the entrance wall.

Harry stood in front of them, wand drawn, the tip of it flashing red. With a slight shake Harry tore apart all the unnaturally colored magic, ripping it away from the Gryffindors like a sandy liquid, looking like dust in waves.

— Never play with other people's faces again – he said coldly, fury falling in his heart like a stone, slowly emptying his body of energy.

Letting the boys fall to the floor, Harry turned and walked back into the dungeon, the wall opening as he got closer. He would need more cocoa to calm down.

***

When the rest of the school returned, a chain of rumors about Hermione's disappearance circulated among the students, because naturally they all thought she had been attacked. So many students passed through the hospital wing trying to get a look at her that Madam Pomfrey took the curtains again and hung them around the girl's bed, to save her the shame of being seen with a hairy face from the polyjuice potion accident.

When the term started, Harry, Ronald and Adrien brought her the activities she missed.

— Honestly, if I had grown cat whiskers, I would have taken a break from my duties – said Ronald one night, dumping a stack of books on Hermione's bedside table.

— Stop being silly, Ron, I have to keep up – said Hermione decisively. Her mood had improved a lot since all the hair had disappeared from her face, and her eyes were slowly returning to their brown color. – I take it you didn't find any new clues? – She added in a whisper, so that Madam Pomfrey wouldn't hear her.

Harry discovering the secret of the polyjuice potion dragged him into an investigation without technical rigor that his brother and his friends were carrying out. It didn't lighten his mood one bit.

— Nothing – Adrien replied, discouraged.

— I was so sure it was Draco – said Ronald, for the hundredth time. From the corner of their eyes, the two boys stared at Harry.

— I give credit for not being open, but stop with those looks – Harry said coldly. – If you wanted to know something, you should have asked me.

— Ah, Harry, we didn't want to involve you – Hermione sighed.

— And what a beautiful gain you had: nothing useful and a tail where there shouldn't be one.

The Gryffindors had the decency to blush.

— I already understand that I deserved it, okay? You can stop...

He didn't want to, but he stayed quiet. There was nothing he could do now, even brood. Adrien turned his head to Hermione.

— What is this? – the boy asked, pointing to Hermione's pillow, where a golden spike appeared beneath it.

— It's just a card wishing me to get well soon – Hermione said quickly, trying to hide it, but Ronald was faster. He pulled out the card, opened it and read aloud:

To Miss Granger I wish a speedy convalescence, your concerned teacher Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Defense Against the Dark Arts League, five-time winner of the Witch Weekly's Most Attractive Smile Award.

Ronald looked at Hermione, disgusted.

— Do you sleep with this under your pillow? – And he received a slap on the back of the head from Harry.

Hermione didn't need to answer because Madam Pomfrey appeared to give her her nighttime medication.

— Is Lockhart the most populist guy you've ever met or what? – Harry heard Ronald complain to Adrien as they left the infirmary and the two headed to Gryffindor Tower.

Harry was walking down the stairs towards the kitchen when he heard a loud, irritable complaint coming up the floor.

— ...always more work for me! Mopping the floor all night, as if I didn't already have enough to do! No, this is the last straw, I'm going to look for Dumbledore...

It was Filch. He sounded a little hysterical, his voice uneven but full of shouty restraint, taking heavy, fuzzy steps on the floor louder as Harry descended further and listened.

— “Plop”? – Harry frowned, going down to the last step. Filch was already gone with a resounding slam of the door from across the hall.

The second floor was, for the umpteenth time that year alone, reflecting the ceiling onto the floor through a three-inch layer of water, which came directly from the women's bathroom.

Myrtle Warren cried, if that was possible, louder and more passionately than ever. She seemed to have hidden herself in her usual boxing. It was dark in the bathroom because the candles had gone out in the huge flood that had left the walls and floor soaked.

— Myrtle? – Harry called, outside the bathroom.

— Who is? – Myrtle said, unhappy. – Are you coming to throw anything else at me?

Harry crossed the water towards Myrtle's box.

— Why would I throw anything at you?

— It's me you're asking! – shouted Myrtle, appearing in the midst of yet another liquid wave, which spread across the already wet ground. – I'm here minding my own business and someone thinks it's funny to throw a book at me...

Harry nodded calmly, letting her get it off her chest.

“Let's all throw books at Myrtle, because she can't feel! Ten points if you make the book go through her belly! Very well, ha, ha, ha! What a great game, I don't think!

— Do you even know who threw the book? – the boy asked patiently.

— I don't know... – Myrtle sniffed. – I was sitting at the corner of the corridor, thinking about death, and the book went through my head – she glared at the boy. – It's there, it was washed away...

Harry bent down, looking under the sink Myrtle was pointing at. There was a small, thin book floating in the water, its cover so black that Harry could barely see it in the darkness. Fearfully, he reached out and picked up the book, leaving it away from him until all the excess water fell off. He could see nothing but golden initials of a T.M. Riddle, he was very unsure whether it would be the same T.M. Riddle from the trophy room or not. Harry couldn't see anything on the cover other than the initials, and the inside was entirely devoid of any records, just damp yellowed sheets.

Suspicious, he pocketed it as soon as he stood up, turning to talk to Myrtle again.