Harry&Molly
The moment that he had been able to see her, they were just bringing her out from a special back room where three Healers had to do surgery on her. He saw them whispering worriedly with Madame Pomfrey, who met them as they came out of the room, and even though he could practically feel the practiced swat of his mother’s hand on the back of his head, lecturing him for eavesdropping, and how only God is allowed to do so, he listened anyway, slipping behind a curtain and crouching near a empty bed.
He couldn’t hear everything they said, only catching a few words here and there. They stopped to converse with Madame Pomfrey, who had immediately made a beeline towards the door as the three Healers exited it, his sister hovering in midair between them.
“How… surgery? Did… well?” Madame Pomfrey asked, or so Harry assumed.
“...will recover. Wounds…blackness. Magical resistance… directly inflicted… results the same,” one of the Healers replied. He began to say something else, but Harry suddenly found himself in no position to keep eavesdropping.
“Ow! Ow! Ow!” yelped Harry as he was dragged up from his crouched position on the floor by a very hard, cold grip on his ear that dragged him back to standing level, or risk getting his ear ripped off, and he was very fond of those.
“Eavesdropping, Mr. Potter?” Even before he said his name wrong, Harry knew who it was. The coldness of the hands was the first giveaway, and him refusing to say his last name correctly just confirmed it.
He found himself staring at the sallow face of Professor Snape, cheekbones standing out sharply against his skin, his eyes dark and hostile. His long, pale fingers clenched Harry’s ear, ragged fingernails chipped so many times on the corks of potion bottles digging into the soft inner flesh of his earlobe, where it felt more like cartilage than skin.
“So-sorry, sir,” he managed to get out through teeth that ground themselves together in pain.
“I thought, being raised in another country by another family, you would have been better than this. But I can see that causing trouble and being where you do not belong are simply… inherited traits. 10 points from Gryffindor for eavesdropping. And…” his smile quirked up harshly, nothing friendly or genial in it at all. “You will be getting detention with me fo-“
Thankfully, he, and his ear, was saved from Professor Snape’s cruel grip by a stern elderly voice. “Severus, release that boy at once! What is the meaning of this?”
Harry then found himself very unceremoniously dropped to the floor like a rag doll, the pain having been so great that Snape’s hand had been the only thing really keeping him up on his feet. When he looked up, he saw the Headmaster walking over swiftly, robes swishing back and forth.
“I found him eavesdropping on a private conversation between a staff member and Ministry officials, Headmaster.” Snape’s tone was more dry and stiff than usual. Said staff member and Ministry officials had long ceased their conversation, and he shivered when all eyes turned on him as he slowly clambered to his feet uncomfortably, not just from his ear now.
“Severus. The boy just almost lost his sister. It is understandable that he would want to listen in to know her status!” said the Headmaster in a stern voice but without the edge of anger it had possessed when he first started speaking. “I will not reverse your removal of House Points, because he was still eavesdropping. But I forbid you from laying on any additional punishments, do you understand?”
Snape’s lips compressed together in a firm line, his pale lips even paler with the pressure that they had almost seemed to disappear entirely. “Yes, Headmaster. Now if you will excuse me, I have to go check on my students.” With that, he brushed past the Headmaster, who walked forward and placed a hand on Harry’s shoulder sympathetically.
“I’m sorry about that, Harry. Professor Snape means well, he can just be… well, harsh is the right word I suppose. He is a stickler for the rules, and…” The Headmaster had sighed and shook his head. “Well, I’m sorry. That is all. But eavesdropping is still not acceptable.”
“Sorry, sir,” Harry murmured, rubbing his ear. “I won’t do it again. Will she be alright? Will everyone be alright?”
The Headmaster smiled faintly, which caused his long white beard to rise and tickle Harry’s chin gently. “Oh, your sister is a very strong-willed young woman. I have no doubt she will pull through and come out even stronger on the other side for it. As for the others, they will pull through as well. Slytherins are a slippery group to truly pin down and kill. There is a reason, you know, why Salazar was feared on the battlefield. And it wasn’t because he was a pushover. Will and cunning are just as strong motivations as bravery and hardiness.” He chuckled lightly, and spread his arm to encompass the sleeping children. “I give you my word I will do everything in my power to see them complete this year. You have my promise.”
Harry felt a weight lift off his shoulders at those words. “Thank you, Headmaster. I just needed to hear those words. As the Bible says, have faith in God and you shall be rewarded. But…” There was still one more thing nagging on him, a whispered rumor he had heard passed around since the attack last night. “Is it true that the House-Elves… I don’t see any here in the infirmary is what I’m saying. People are saying they helped fight the monster that attacked. Are they alright?”
For a second, so quick Harry almost thought he didn’t see it, an expression of surprise and hesitation flashed across the old man’s face. “Oh. Yes, yes, the House-Elves. Some of them did die. It is a great tragedy indeed. But do not worry, Harry. The other House-Elves have already been compensated for the extra work they must now take up, and they have been given back to the House-Elves to be disposed of in their own customs.”
That single exchange caught Harry’s mind as he continued to speak with the Headmaster. Disposed of? Do not worry about it? Compensated for extra work? The way it had been phrased almost made it seem like the death of the House-Elves was simply an inconvenience for the Headmaster, workers who had been killed, not lives that had been lost. These thoughts nagged in his brain, even as he focused on his sister. Perhaps he was reading too much into it, one part of him said. Perhaps the Headmaster had been distracted and didn’t choose his words as well or as carefully as he normally would have. Yes, that might have been it. But still, Harry felt that doubt, a nagging feeling inside of him.
* * *
Molly stirred gently with the sensation of warmth on her face. She groaned and tried to roll over, to put the pillow on her face. She didn't want to get up just yet, but she knew that if she didn’t her mom would come up and start yelling and then she would be annoyed all morning, and it just wasn’t worth it. So with a sigh she opened her eyes…and found herself not in her normal bed. She felt a surge of panic, but then everything, all the events of last night, came back to her. Instead of the memories soothing her and making her calm by letting her know where she was, it just made the panic all the more potent, made it overtake her and she struggled to breathe, her breath coming out in short gasps as her brain replayed the horrible sights from last night. She screamed, her voice coming out in a ragged scream, as all the things that her brain couldn’t comprehend, all the things she had seen last night that had been shoved on the back burner, bubbled up in clear clarity. She was screaming and she struggled to sit up and realized that she couldn’t move, that she was frozen in place below her neck.
And then her brother was there, leaning over her and holding her tight. “Molly, Molly. I’m right here. Don’t scream, I’m right here for you. Shh…shh. It’s alright. You’re safe now, Sis,” Harry said in a ragged tone, voice raw with emotion, clearly choking up himself. She tried to push her panic down and get a grip on herself.
“H-Harry. Why can’t I move?” she asked, still struggling through her great racking sobs that started from her stomach and welled up.
“They had to temporarily paralyze you to keep you from hurting yourself. The Full-Body Bind will wear off soon, don’t worry. But they can’t have you re-opening your fresh wounds.”
“W-wounds? What wounds?” Finally, the sobs were subsiding, letting her speak more clearly and in proper sentences, though Harry’s face still streamed with silent tears, and he lifted his glasses to wipe at his eyes, his face tormented.
“God in Heaven, I suppose in the heat of the battle you probably didn’t even notice did you? The beast got you pretty good, cut open your side. It took a few hours of working by the doctors to get the blood flow down and healing the inner organs to even start repairing the skin. They only finished on you about an hour ago,” Harry said in a quiet voice, and then another figure appeared on the other side of her bed, and she had to use way much more energy than she was used to using to turn her head to look at him.
“Hello, Miss Carpenter,” came the dry voice of Professor Snape as he looked down upon her, his face pale and his robe blood spattered. “I must confess I owe you a great deal of debt today, something I do not say casually.” Indeed his face twisted into a slight grimace as he said if, but the words still came out. “It is quite possible that without your taking charge of the situation, all of you in the Common Room for whatever foolish reason tempted you to stay after, would have perished. Thank you, truly.” His voice got a little tender at the end, though it was still a far cry to call it emotional, and he nodded before moving on to another bed. For, now that she looked around, she realized that she was just one of many other students lying in bed, all students that had been in the Common Room with her or left minutes earlier. She was relieved to see that they all seemed alive and even though moans of pain cut through the air, they all were breathing and being tended to by a multitude of doctors who were walking around. The only student who seemed to be up and recovered was Grey, which shocked her.
“Grey?” she called, and Harry got up and went over to him, where he had been talking quietly to Snape, and bringing him over. The last time she had seen him, he had been holding his ruined stump as pieces of his arm fell to the ground, oh God so much blood. She could see each piece hitting the ground separat-. She shook her head, forcing those thoughts away, refocusing on the present. Now he seemed to walk with no pain at all, arm there as if it never had been gone. That was, until he passed into the sunlight provided by the window directly above Molly’s head. When it did, she could see that Grey’s left hand, the one that has been missing when she last saw her, now glinted in the sunlight. And when he sat down on the edge of her bed, he seemed heavier than he should have been.
“G-Grey?” she asked, her voice hoarse from the screaming. “I assume you made it to the Great Hall, then. And they even managed to reattach your arm!” she said, gesturing to where his hand was mostly obscured by the sleeve of his robe.
In response, he lifted his arm and let the robe slide away down to the crook of his elbow. “Not exactly,” he said in a tone she wasn't quite sure was amusement or sorrow, or some bizarre mixture of both. She gasped in shock, as his full left arm was revealed, in all its horrifying glory. It was the exact same shape as his former arm, except that it was made of pure silver that gleamed in the sunlight, nearly blinding her with the glare. It looked long and sleek, and Grey demonstrated he had perfect mobility by flexing all his fingers also.
“What is it?” Harry asked for her before she could even get a chance to.
“It’s called Dream Steel. It’s magically constructed liquid steel that can be made into a lot of different shapes and materials. The Headmaster himself made this one from me, just tapped the stump of my arm and summoned it right up. And it’s so much stronger than my normal arm. I can lift the entire bed with my hand if I could, I bet!!!” he said excitedly and began to get up to demonstrate just that.
“Now, now, perhaps let us not lift up the bed with poor Molly in it while she’s still injured hmm?” said Madam Pomfrey as she came fussing over and cast Grey a long, steady look.
He flushed in embarrassment and nodded. “Maybe you’re right.”
“Yes. Just perhaps I am,” she said in a dry tone then waved him off the bed to peel back Molly’s blanket and as Molly looked down at her exposed stomach, she saw the wound for herself. It was long and ugly and purple, a raised line that started somewhere on her rib cage and went down, ending just under her belly button. She felt sick just looking at it, but Madam Pomfrey seemed pleased.
“Oh, this is coming along nicely indeed! Very nice, yes. You should be able to get out of here by nightfall hopefully!” She said and then recovered her and stepped back. “Now, if you promise to not move around too much, I will lift the Body-Bind curse off you. Do you promise?” She gave her a look that told her that none of her trickery would work here, and certainly not be accepted. She nodded and Madam Pomfrey swished with her wand and suddenly the silent force she had been straining against was gone, and she could move her hands and legs once more, though when she did move her legs it sent a sharp pain through her stomach as her hips rotated and she fought not to gasp at the sensation.
“Madam Pomfrey,” began Harry tentatively, always the more curious one than her. She preferred stuff that was cool. Give her a recipe to make someone breathe underwater than a boring lecture on where magic words come from any day.
“Yes, Mr. Carpenter?” she asked, already about to make her way to the next student, Gemma, who was deeply asleep with bandages wrapped around her arm.
“If you are magic and all, how come you couldn’t just reattach Grey’s arm to his body? In the last two hours here alone I’ve seen bones regrow, spines shattered against a stone wall healed with no cracks, blood magically reappear in a transfusion and life-threatening wounds healed up with hardly a scratch. So by comparison, an arm seems rather simple to reattach.” Harry said, gesturing to Grey’s arm.
“Hey man, don’t make them take away my awesome new arm!” Grey protested as he flexed his fingers once more.
“Well, yes, we could reattach it, make the bone heal seamlessly and the skin to look like it had never been cut at all, it’s true,” Madam Pomfrey said, seemingly surprised to hear a medical question from him, and definitely excited to share some knowledge. “But the problem is it would be a dead arm. It’s the nerves that are the issue.”
“The nerves?” asked Harry in confusion.
“Yes. No matter how many centuries of trying, we can’t seem to get the nerves to reconnect to one another, at least not properly. Did you ever wonder why, if the Headmaster is one of the greatest wizards to ever live, he still wears spectacles? It’s because your eyes are underlaid with thousands of tiny optical nerves that make them work, making you able to see with them. Our magic just can’t do the precision necessary to reconnect nerves or replace them when they are broken. The brain just won’t accept it. That’s the reason why prolonged exposure to the Cruciatus Curse is so deadly. You know Neville and what happened to his parents?” When she, Harry and Grey nodded, now all listening intently, she continued on. “Well, the reason they have sadly been residents of St. Mungo's for the last decade is because the Curse attacks the nerves in a person’s body. It attacks them and causes them to send millions of messages to the brain of pain. Once someone has been subjected to it for prolonged periods of time, it’s different for everyone, the brain literally starts to kill off their own nerve endings to try and escape the pain. It’s like an animal in a trap chewing off its own leg. That’s why the poor Longbottoms are comatose. They were under the curse for so long, their bodies were literally paralyzed. Their brains still function, but they are trapped in a prison of their own making, and we have no means to free them. So that is why we can’t just reattach his arm. There simply is no way to make it work, and Grey would be dragging around a dead arm.”
And without even waiting for a response, she was gone, peeling back the eyelids of Gemma and checking her pulse.
“Well…” said Grey, his expression looking a little sick. “Good thing that wasn’t gross or anything.”
“Grey, what happened after I passed out? The last thing I remember was Professor Snape carrying me in his arms.” She wanted to keep talking, needed to keep talking, needed to stave away the images that threatened to overwhelm her that she was keeping back with the most delicate of mental walls that threatened to break at any second.
“Well, I didn’t see much since I was, you know, not there. But from what I heard, Snape and Dumbledore got there first, and they literally tore the thing apart with magic ropes until it was just a pile of bones,” Grey said in a more subdued voice, his eyes growing hard. “Then they burned each bone individually with some kind of super fire until there was nothing but the cloak left.”
Molly nodded, glad that the… the thing was gone for good. She tried to keep her thoughts centered and not think more about the thing at all. Harry stayed and so did Grey for a long while and they chatted and Harry did his best to make her laugh but while she fake laughed to indulge him, it wasn’t a real one, the one that came from her happy place inside. It was empty there now, her insides hollowed out to anger, and fear.So after a while, she told them she was feeling tired and rolled to her side as they left. Her brother had pulled the curtains closed before leaving but she could still see his outline so she knew he was just outside, something that both annoyed and comforted her. She had lied about feeling tired so she was surprised to find herself immediately passing out, falling into nightmares that might have scared her if they didn’t pale to the horrors she had already just experienced.
* * *
It was now that evening and her scar that had been so purple and painful just a few hours ago was now a faint pale line with some minor bruising around it. She was amazed at how quickly it had healed up, and now when she stretched she still got a tinge of pain, but it was the pain one got when they ran too far and got a stitch in their side, not the pain that should accompany her insides almost being torn out by foot long claws. So when she got up, she didn’t have to hunch over to keep it from tearing open and she didn’t have to even care for stitches. I think I'm starting to enjoy this whole magic thing, she thought ironically as she was given one of her robes that she changed into and attempted to brush her curly mess of hair. She gave up with a sigh and just let it hang, curls tangled and matted in the back of her head. She pulled her wands into her pocket and the cross back over her neck and then pushed her way through the curtains and met Professor Snape at the doorway to the Infirmary.
“Are you ready to go to dinner, Miss Carpenter?” he said in that dry, slow speaking voice of his, like someone had mixed the slow talking of the South with a British accent and threw in a healthy dose of derision for good measure.
“Yes, but do I really need my own personal escort?” Molly said as they began to walk down the corridor, sunlight streaming through the archway and warming her.
“New rules after the unfortunate…accident.” Here his mouth twisted as if he had tasted something bitter. “That requires all students to never walk alone in the corridors. I already escorted my House, so I came to get you, since Madame Pomfrey informed me that you were the only one healed enough to join us tonight.”
“Really? That’s what we are calling it now?” Molly snapped with irritation. “A student died and several House-Elves also sacrificed their lives and it's just an accident?” She scoffed in scorn and anger.
Professor Snape also seemed to share her sentiments, as his mouth twisted into an even greater scowl. “It is the official line that the Ministry is going with, so we must be the good sheep and play along with them for the time being.” He shook his head. “Stupid bureaucratic fools.”
“Why are they doing that? Gah!” Molly threw her hands up in the air in pure frustration.
“Because they are weak-minded fools, that is why,” Snape said and they reached the doors and pushed their way inside the Hall.
The whole school was already there, but not all settled down yet, and the food hadn't appeared. When they walked in, the Hall went silent and Dumbledore stood up slowly. And walked to the front of the Podium. She knew with a sudden realization what he was going to do only moments before he did it, and she began to glare at Professor Snape, for surely he had set this up, but she didn’t have time as Dumbledore called out in his clear, surprisingly strong voice that she wasn’t completely sure wasn’t magically enhanced.
“I would like to call up Miss Carpenter and Mr. Mandla, please. Along with the Ministry Healers of course.” She saw Grey get up out of the corner of her eye, and the team of doctors that had left that afternoon that were pressed against the back wall also moved forward to join Dumbledore. She felt all eyes on her as she made her way up the center of the hall, moving slower than usual, or at least it felt like that as she grew red with embarrassment. But some part of her that was much larger than she would like to admit, enjoyed basking in the attention, enjoyed being the center of it. At long last she made her way all the way up the stairs and met Grey there as he climbed up them as well.
She didn’t realize how tall the steps were. She supposed they might be normal size for the adults, but for her, with her 11-year-old legs and straining side, they felt like mountains. Finally she made her way up the three steps and stopped in front of the podium and Grey stood on the other side, and she rolled her eyes as she noticed he had his arm sleeve rolled up just slightly to show off his metal arm.
“As I’m sure you all know,” began Dumbledore as the Hall quieted and fixed their eyes on the group of them, “there was an unfortunate accident last night in the Slytherin Common Room, involving an ogre that seemingly wandered its way into the castle. It is with great sorrow to inform you that one of our very own, Georgia Blandor, lost her life last night and that several more are now lying in the Hospital ward, recovering from deep and grievous injuries. Madame Sprout has asked me to remind you that anyone in need of counseling, no matter what House you reside in, may come to her for it, as our licensed counselor on staff. But also, even in these dark times, there are beacons of light and hope. I wish to honor a few of those beacons here. First, Miss Margaret Carpenter.” He turned towards her and inclined his head deeply. “We all owe you a great debt. Without your actions, it is possible that many more students would have died. But you used your magic in a most ingenious way and managed to save lives, exemplifying the true traits of Slytherin in your cunning and resourcefulness. For your actions, I award Slytherin 100 House points.” She felt herself flush red with pride, still tinged with sadness and horror from the night befores actions. He then turned to Grey.
“And of course, Mr. Mandla.” He turned towards Grey now, who shook his head but Dumbledore overrode his protests. “Even if young Ms. Carpenter here had stood and fought as long as she could, it wouldn’t have made a difference if you hadn’t braved the beast and made a run for it. And even when the foul creature had sliced off your arm, you still ran for help, as blood flowed out of you.” Personally Molly thought he was being melodramatic a tad bit, but he was a sappy old man so she gave him a pass. “Some people may say that bravery is only a Gryffindor trait, that you deserve to be in Gryffindor for your actions. But I wish for all to see and take notice that no matter what house you're in, you can still be brave.” Dumbledore swept his stern gaze across the room, and a few Gryffindor ducked their heads to not meet that gaze, Molly noticed. “And for your ambitious run and brave actions, I award Slytherin one hundred House Points. But our debt to you goes far deeper. Thank you, children. I’m so proud of you.” And with that, even though he didn’t directly say it, Molly sensed they were subtly dismissed and they began to make their way back to their table to cheers from the students, all Houses alike, the only time she had ever heard that besides the announcements of food.
As they sat down, Dumbledore began to speak again, addressing the group of Healers. “And of course, we once again must thank our Ministry, and Minister Bones, for the prompt response from their medical response team that saved many lives.” He gestured to them, as if a group of the five people standing uncomfortably in front of him were not obviously the people he was speaking of. “I believe you are a bit too old to be awarded House Points,” a light laugh rippled out at that from the Healers, “but I’m sure you aren’t too old that you will not stay with us for our Great Feast? You may even join your former houses, if you wish.” He smiled and the Healers greeted this proposal enthusiastically.
I guess no matter how old you are, she thought, you don’t forget the splendor of seemingly endless Hogwarts-made food appearing in front of you.
After that, the long-winded old bag seemed to run out of things to say and he clapped his hands once, and with that signal the first round of food appeared on the empty plates in front of them. She was watching the Healers, however, curious where they would go. As she expected, most of them went to the Hufflepuff table, to a barrage of questions and congratulations. It was a commonly known fact that most Healers were former Hufflepuffs, with their commonly shared skill with plants and compassionate bedside manner. And the last one went to the Ravenclaw table, where she too was greeted with questions, but much more subdued and calm ones.
Molly couldn't contain her frustration any more, and turned to Grey in annoyance. “Can you believe that the Ministry is just calling this an accident? And what’s this about it being an ogre?! The cowards don't want to face what happened.” She growled and shook her head in annoyance as she glared across at Dumbledore who was sitting at the center of the teachers table in his own self-fashioned ‘throne’.
Grey gave her a look that told her she was being stupid, which didn't exactly make her feel any happier. “Molly, take a minute to think about it. The Ministry is in the middle of a war right now. We have been for three decades, and Hogwarts is… well, it’s Hogwarts, Molly! It is safety itself. If the Ministry declared it was compromised, people would be a lot more scared.”
Molly pressed her lips together, kind of seeing his logic. “Well, then what about calling it an ogre?! There’s no matter what creature it was, right?”
“Well, if they told everyone it was an Ogre and then some adult says, that Rawhead attack, it’s pretty obvious they know something now, innit?” Grey said questioningly as he took a bite of his food and raised an eyebrow at her. “I mean, take it from me. No offense, but I've lived in the Wizarding World a tiny bit longer than you have. Plus,” here he leaned in and said in a pseudo-whisper, “I have a really cool arm now.” Molly desperately fought down the blush as he leaned in, and shifted in her seat as he sat back forward and winked at her, her annoyance fading away as she just rolled her eyes. “Are you just going to bring that up every chance you get now?”
He grinned widely and his white teeth caught the candlelight brightly. “Ab-so-lutely.”
The rest of the meal passed by rather uneventfully, and she even managed to feel like her normal self for a few beautiful but fleeting moments. And then dessert was done, and the meal was over. The teachers of each respective House got up and began to lead them to the dorm rooms, and at first Molly was fine. She felt completely normal joking and laughing with her classmates. In the light of recent events, even Malfoy left her alone, giving her a wide berth, and his goons couldn’t seem to decide whether they should be respectful to her and Grey or be scared, so they hung back and just watched warily.
But it was when they got nearer and nearer to the Dormitory entrance way that she began to… feel something. It started out as a prickling on the back of her neck, hairs rising one by one. Then, step by step closer, she felt bands tightening around her chest, her breathing becoming hitched. And when they came to the threshold, she was struggling to take a breath, her chest heaving. She felt the things claws on her, she smelt the acidic taste of blood in the air. Oh God, it was coming for her. Oh God, oh God. And that’s when her fight ended, and she lost. The panic overtook her and she curled up in a fetal position on the ground, blind to everything and everyone, screaming and screaming, her throat going raw.
Even though she wasn’t aware of it, Professor Snape and Grey reacted instantly. “Get back!” shouted Snape as he moved through the crowd, and crouched over Molly’s form. He tried to shake her awake, snapping his fingers in front of her eyes, but she had no clue that was happening. All she could see was darkness and the creature, all she could feel was fear.
“I need someone to keep her down while I go to my office,” Snape said as he stood himself up. “If she keeps jerking around like that, she may hurt herself or aggravate the scar.” With a simple swish of his wrist and a muttered word, Molly became completely and utterly still, petrified in place.
When Snape finally arrived, he motioned Grey out of the way and kneeled down in front of her, and opened the jar of… whatever it was under her nose.
Molly was in the darkness. She was all alone and knew her death was coming. She was… oh God, she was going to die, wasn't she? She knew that this was it, she could feel it in her very bones, hear the scraping. And then, in the distance, a pinprick of light appeared, and steadily grew closer. Or maybe it just grew larger, she couldn't tell. And then a smell hit her nose, the smell of her Mom’s fresh baked cookies out of the oven, the smell of home that always made her feel warm and loved. Slowly the panic subsided, and she moved towards the light. And then… then she was out. She was back in the hallway of Hogwarts, with everyone staring at her as Snape held something under her nose. And…why was her throat feeling raw? She tried to sit up, feeling very confused. “W-what happened?” she asked wearily as Grey helped her to her feet.
“I believe, Miss Carpenter, you had a panic attack. Thankfully I had just been brewing a potion of Ferratilis Impetum last night for my Third-Year class. I don't think it has ever been used for this specific purpose, but it worked well enough.” He put the vial of potions back into his pocket. “Miss Carpenter, I am, as the Head of your House, mandating that you will go to bi-weekly meetings with Professor Sprout, on Mondays and Fridays after you’ve completed your lessons.”
“Professor, I promise I’m fine! This was just a one-time occurrence, I promise you. It won’t happen again,” Molly protested, her head still swimming with exhaustion and the vestiges of fear that had flooded her only moments earlier.
Snape turned and opened the doorway to the Common Room, and glared at the kids. “Go. I’m sure you have schoolwork to do instead of listening to a conversation that pertains no relevance to you. Yes, you too, Mr. Mandla. If you are under the delusion that having a new metal arm makes you above the rules, I must inform you that you are sadly mistaken. Now go inside.” Grey sighed, his protests stopped before they even exited his lips, and trudged inside with the others, and after a few seconds the doorway closed, and she and the Professor were alone in the hallway.
“Professor-” Molly began before he raised a hand and cut her off and shook his head.
“There will be no protesting this, Miss Carpenter. I am mandating you to do it,” he said firmly, and with a hint of his drawling tone that she noticed came out more when his patience was thinning.
“But I don't need it, Professor! Everyone will think…” She trailed off, raising her arms in a helpless gesture.
“They will think what, exactly, Ms. Carpenter? That you are weak for accepting that some things are too terrible for one person to face alone? You are my responsibility, and you are truly a natural at potions. I will not allow you to sit here and wallow in your pain for the sake of self-pride, and see a brilliant mind go to waste. And while it is tradition for the Hufflepuff Head to be a counselor for anyone who needs it, this is the first time that the Head of House has gone through schooling and has an official license to be a therapist from the Muggle world. I implore you to take advantage of that unique opportunity, Miss Carpenter.” Professor Snape inhaled sharply after finishing that mini-lecture, having said that in almost one breath.
Molly felt pride fill her when he called her a brilliant mind and a Potions natural. Out of all the classes, she had found Potions the most interesting and engaging, and while she normally struggled with the most simple of spells, to her frustration she still had not turned the matchstick into a needle while most of the class had longed moved on, she found the three M’s of Potion-making (which were measuring, memorizing and mixing) potions did come naturally to her. “Okay, I guess you are right. Though I don't see how much it would help, truth be told. I’m sure it won’t happen again.”
But it did happen again, she found. It happened later that night when someone dropped a stack of books too loudly and it startled her, and once more the next day during Herbology when one of the Briggle Pulx plants wrapped its tiny little arm around her wrist and pulled, reminding her of how the beast had tried to grab her, and sending her into another panic attack. Thankfully for both these times, Professor Snape had had the foresight to give her her own vial of Ferratilis Impetum in a vial that was spelled to never shatter or break by normal means, so when she fell and rolled on it, it didn't pierce her side with shards of glass. Grey had gotten the potion out and held it under her nose, and she was snapped out of it, the attacks not lasting too long that way.
And as Professor Snape had arranged, since she finished her Mondays and Fridays with Professor Sprout in Herbology, she went with her after the class had dismissed, following her into the castle and going to her own private office. It was in the basement across the same hallway as the Hufflepuff Common Room.
The first thing that Molly noticed as they walked into the room was the sweet fragrance of flowers hitting her nose. There were so many types she couldn’t discern all of them, but she definitely detected the sweet aroma of daffodils and the sharp but not pungent smell of lavender, along with many others. All of these competing smells should have not worked together, should have competed and fought against each other to create a jarring smell. Like when the older students at her old school thought that if they put on half a bottle of cologne, it would hide the fact they hadn’t taken a shower in a week, when all it did was make it so she got an overpowering smell of bad cologne one second and the stink of body odor the second. But instead of that, they all mixed together perfectly, creating a lovely aroma. The second thing she noticed was the noise. It was… was that ribbiting she heard? And when she turned her head to the right as she walked nervously through the doorway, sure enough it was. From seemingly nowhere, a steady stream of water in the form of a waterfall came out of the solid stone of the wall, cascading over several terraces layered like steps down to a perfectly round pond about half a meter long and half a meter wide. And inside that pond floated tiny lily pads and on one side there were miniature bulrush plans. And in the pond, at least a dozen if not more frogs hopped around or laid on rocks and basked in the sun. And the rest of the room was decorated with numerous shelves with all sorts of plants on them, the flowers that she had smelt, and long tendrils of vines that draped over the lower shelves, or climbed down the wall. And in the far left corner, behind the desk, there was even a tree that started out from the floor and stopped abruptly when it hit the ceiling, with several holes in it that looked like shelves carved into its hollow with stacks of paper sitting in them.
She just stopped in the doorway for a moment, taking it all in. The smells of the flowers, the sounds of the bubbling waterfall, even the carpet looked like it was made out of soft, dark green moss. It was a beautiful office, much nicer than Professor Snape’s Head Office, which was cold and dark and gray, with weird smells of potions always in the air. Professor Sprout went around to the other side of the desk and sat down and started clearing some room on her desk, gesturing for Molly to sit down on the other side. She did, making her way to a chair that was intricately sculpted out of wood, with a plush cushion on it for comfort. As the papers were cleared away, she ran her hand over the wood, noticing for the first time that each leg of the desk was a tiny tree and the branches of all four ‘trees’ intricately weaved together to form a solid wooden surface that was the desk.
“Wow! How did you do this?!” Molly asked in shock as she saw just how smoothly the branches jointed together.
Professor Sprout just winked. “Magic, don’t you know, love. Now, are you comfortable? Is there anything I can get you, anything you need before we get started?”
“Can I have some milk and cookies?” she asked as she settled herself, trying to find a comfy position to sit in. She didn't feel like her usual banter or anything like that, she just felt mentally exhausted if she was honest with herself. And she really did not want to do this whole charlatan routine of someone pretending to listen to her problems for two hours every week.
“Why, of course,” Professor Sprout said, swishing her wand and saying something Molly could almost but not quite make out, and suddenly, as if they had been there the whole time, cookies and a tall glass of milk appeared right in front of her, and a smaller cup for the Professor. When she picked it up and sipped tentatively, she smiled happily. It was almond milk, which was her favorite type of milk. Magic. What had she ever done without it?
“So, love, where do you want to start? I will give you the disclaimer that anything you share with me will stay between just me and you, unless it is something that is a danger to someone else or you say something that leads me to believe you may be a danger to yourself. You understand?” When Molly nodded, she took a bite of the cookie and smiled. “Great! Now where should we start? I always find it best to start at the beginning, personally. You can’t identify where the dead leaves on the tree are if you haven't started with an examination of the roots first, now can you?” She laughed quietly at her own joke and Molly realized that she would be in for a lot of plant euphemisms in these meetings, which should have been clear the moment she walked into this room, in hindsight. “So tell me about your parents. What do they do, who are they? Are they good parents? Bad? The floor is yours.”
Molly wasn't sure if this was intentional by the Professor, but she had given Molly one of the very things she loved to do the most as a free invitation. The ability to simultaneously be the center of attention and to talk as long as she wanted. Though she was not good about just having completely free reign to talk, which is why she was grateful for the specific questions to narrow down her field of focus, so to speak, giving her the ability to talk without actually having to think about what she had to talk about.
“Alright,” she said, taking a sip of milk to delay and gather her thoughts. She considered how much she should tell her about her mom and dad. She wasn’t sure that if she told the Professor the complete truth she wouldn’t think she was completely crazy, or that she wouldn’t go to the Headmaster no matter what her promises were, or even worse, tell one of her teacher friends and make a whole mess of things. No, she decided she didn’t trust this cheery, plump woman just yet. So instead, for the hour allotted to her, she rambled on about her Dad and his quiet kindness and his strength that she hadn’t realized she relied on so heavily until she had been gone away from it two months, and how annoying her mother was, always so demanding and bossy and controlling, never letting her do what she wanted to do, always just having to follow her mother’s directions. And how her brother was fun but always the goody two-shoes, always dutifully following everything her mother said to a T, which just made her more mad at Molly, always saying stuff like “Why can’t you be more like your brother? He listens so well and you are just so lazy.” She took on a mocking tone to mimic her mother’s voice.
The Professor mostly stayed silent during what Molly admitted to herself was her tirade, just asking a few clarifying questions occasionally.
When the hour was up, Molly felt a little bit better, despite all the strong walls of cynicism she had built up in herself. Professor Sprout walked out the door with her and began leading her to her own hallways and dormitory, “I must say, you seem to have exceptional parents, even if your mother is demanding I’m sure you still love her. You have gifts. Some of your peers would be extremely grateful to have the parents and brother you possess.” Her smile flickered briefly for a moment before restoring itself in full force, so briefly in fact Molly wasn’t even sure if she had imagined it or not. “Well, I look forward to seeing you later this week. And next time you feel a panic attack coming on, try and find one thought or memory to anchor yourself. I know it may not be easy to do that, or that it even works for all people. But if you have one thought you can focus on, it can give you an anchor that you can find your way back to. Typically a happy or one that carries strong emotions for you are the best ones to use. I will see you at dinner tonight, and if there is ever an emergency, I will open my doors to you any time I can. Goodbye, love.”
And with that they were in the Slytherin Hallway, standing outside the false wall that led inside to the Common Room, and Professor Sprout was bustling away down the hallway back to her own warmer hallway, courtesy of being by the kitchen. Molly gave the password, and when the door melted open for her, she found her friends sitting around their customary table, near the back. They had even saved her a seat, her favorite one that had its back to the fire and the chair was always warm due to that. She sat down heavily and rested in the much more comfortable chair happily.
“Back from conversing with the enemy, Carpenter?” Malfoy sneered as he and his two thugs got up from where they were sitting with their posse and walked over to where she had just entered.
“Malfoy, I am so not in the mood right now,” Molly said, without even bothering to look up at him where he stood, leering. “And frankly, that doesn't even make any sense. If meeting with a teacher was conversing with an enemy, wouldn't every class count as that?” she asked, not really caring, just exhausted from her ordeals of panic attacks twice that day.
Crabbe leaned forward, at least she thought it was Crabbe, they were both so lumpy and ugly it was hard to tell them apart sometimes. He whispered something in Malfoy’s ear, and he just waved him off. “Oh, please. Do you really believe that this mudblood managed to fight off an ogre almost single-handedly? Give me a break, Crabbe. Especially when she is clearly so weak and inefficient with magic she totes around a fake second wand to make her feel better. Heck, she probably set the whole thing up just to make herself look better, and threw in the obviously fake ‘attacks’ to help her sell the lie.” He turned back to Molly and raised a thin, delicate eyebrow, almost invisible due to the paleness of the color and of his skin. “Was that it, Carpenter? Did you have some desperate need to measure up to your celebrity fake brother and arranged this stunt to do so?”
For the first time since he tried to instigate something with her, she felt a spark of rage spark inside her. All the things that she had seen that night, the exhaustion and the fear and the very clear and witnessable panic attacks she had gone through, and he was going to stand there and mock her about it? She slowly turned her head and met Malfoy’s triumphant eyes with hot, raw anger. “Back. Off. Malfoy. Now.” Molly’s voice shook with rage.
Grey stood up also, his wand in his hand. “Mate, you really don't want this fight.” Beside him, Daphne and Penelope also stood up.
Malfoy tipped his hat back and laughed. “Oh yes, I’m really scared. The mudblood who is pretending to be anything near her brother, the bastard daughter because your father couldn't keep his thing in his pants and the once great house of Mandla, now fallen because your great-grandmother couldn't resist the charms of a muggleborn man.” He pursed his lips thoughtfully. “Well, maybe charm isn’t the right word, is it? How about we all be honest and say what really happened?” He mimed uncorking a vial and pouring it into a cup and raised an eyebrow once again, just as infuriating.
Grey growled in anger, a noise deep in his throat, and balled up a fist. “How dare you insinuate that! You know those were outlawed, long before my great-grandfather met my great-grandmother.”
“Oh please. Like laws ever stopped someone like that. And of course, we can’t let little Penelope Fawley feel left out can we? You know, my father was proud to call your uncle one of his friends and confidants. Too bad the dignity of the Fawley’s died with him, Blood-Traitor.” If it was even possible, his voice took on even more disgust when he said the word Blood-Traitor than when he said the word mudblood, which she had thought was the worst thing to be in his books.
“Okay, that’s it.” Molly mothered and stood up, drawing herself to her full height, which wasn't impressive but was still taller than him. She knew that she couldn't fight him magically, because one that would be breaking the rules and two, he had grown up in the magical world and was probably far more her superior than she could ever be. And besides, she had heard Draco bragging loudly on more than one occasion that Crabbe and Goyle had been secretly trained by their families in many forms of battle magic, bribing Ministry officials to look the other way, so they could probably wipe the floor with her, even with backup. So she wasn't stupid, she knew magic was a no go. But she had one advantage that Draco didn't.
Molly opened her mouth. “I’m going to give you one last chance to back o-” before she finished speaking, she was moving, swinging a fist that connected hard with his jaw, keeping her thumb outside her fist at a 45 degree angle so as to not break her wrist, just like she had been taught. It hit with a nasty crack, and Malfoy had not been expecting it at all, and his head snapped to the left, and he dropped, hard. Crabbe and Goyle were already moving before he had even hit the floor, one of them catching him and the other moving to intercept Molly before she could follow up with anything else, barreling into her and knocking her to the ground, where she felt the air leave her lungs when she hit the ground, and realized she had made a serious miscalculation. She had assumed that they were so big because they were always eating more than everyone else when they were at mealtimes. But now she realized that, like everything else about them, it was an illusion. Hidden under the fat was hard muscle, and she felt all of it when his shoulder hit her stomach. After that, she lost track of what was happening, the sharp pain from her scar so intense she couldn't focus. She knew that fists were being thrown, and wisely Crabbe and Goyle were avoiding Grey, who, with one punch, burst through the entire armchair with his newfound metal arm.
“What is going on here?” an angry voice boomed, and suddenly she felt an invisible force freeze her and lift her into the air, and the same with Goyle, who she had been fighting, separating them frozen in the air. She saw out of the corner of her eye the same happening to Goyle, and Grey and Penelope, Daphne having not joined in and just sat there, watching with a bemused expression.
Since Daphne was the only one not frozen, she explained the situation. “Draco thought it was a good idea to instigate a fight with Molly, saying that he did not believe there was even a monster and Molly had been faking the whole thing for attention. Crabbe and Goyle tried to warn him not to pick a fight, once again proving they are smarter than little Pureblood over there, but he just kept pushing. So she punched him, and…you’ve seen the aftermath.”
Professor Snape ground his teeth together in frustration. He then walked over and, while still keeping the spell that kept her and her classmates immobilized in midair, performed a completely separate spell that awoke Malfoy from where he lay passed out in the corner, dragged out of the way by one of the thugs in the confusion. The moment he woke up, he started moaning and clutching at his jaw in pain, and when he saw the Professor over him, he regained some of his usual self-command.
“P-Profethor! That stupid girlth attack me!” He said in slurred speech, speaking through his injured jaw.
“Is it true that you told her that she made up the entire attack?” He asked coldly, completely ignoring Malfoy’s pain.
“Welth, yes but-”
Snape cut him off. “One of your classmates died. This is a very serious matter, Draco. And I can tell you that the beast was very real. I was one of the people who had to kill it, remember? I am extremely disappointed in this childish behavior. And, Miss Carpenter, even if you were provoked, you still should not have started a fight.” He said, wheeling back on her. “Five points from Slytherin for lack of self-control.” Behind him, Malfoy grinned through his bloody mouth, and she wanted to snarl back, or protest that why was she getting punished and not him also, but she obviously could not. He flicked his wand, and all five figures were suddenly released and dropped unceremoniously to the ground. Professor Snape turned and helped Malfoy up, and whispered something in his ear as he did so. Molly couldn't make out much, but she did distinctively hear the words, “Your father.” Whatever it was, it was enough to make Malfoy’s look of triumph vanish as quickly as his eyeballs had retreated into the back of his head when she socked him. She sighed though, or she would have if she had gotten her breath back from hitting the floor, as when Professor Snape looked away he cast his full rage at her, eyes burning.
And when he left the room, he came up and whispered in a low, harsh voice, “You better watch your back, mudblood.” It was the most cliché line she had ever heard. But there was a reason it was cliché, and that was because it was still very threatening, and it got across the effect he wanted on her perfectly.