In the days leading up to Halloween Alecto Carrow began teaching them all about Muggle-baiting and how already the Dark Lord was making it possible for pureblood wizards to test their spells and “have fun” in the Muggle world, even when it wasn’t Halloween. They were made to write essays about famous Muggle-baiters. In Dark Arts classes Amycus gave them free reign to use whatever spell, hex, or jinx that they could perform.
It was unbearable. Ginny was seething with suppressed rage now; her feelings of helplessness had increased tenfold since their failed attempt at the sword. They were trying to fight back, but it never felt like they achieved anything useful. Seamus was so bruised he looked like a different person now, and Neville had landed himself in detention more times than could be counted. They had not restricted themselves to speaking out in class, either.
One night when Ginny was doing a patrol for the DA she found herself in a very familiar hallway. There was no one there, but she felt shivers run down her spine. Suddenly, it all came back to her in a flood of memories. This wall before her was the same wall on which Tom had forced her to write the very first message warning the inhabitants of Hogwarts that the Heir of Slytherin had returned. She pulled out her wand. She was going to write another message now, and this time it would be the Carrows who would feel anger and fear.
She used bright, vibrant colors, reminding herself of Weasleys Wizard Wheezes. When she was finished Ginny admired her handiwork. She was grinning stupidly at the wall when she heard the crash. Ginny renewed her disillusionment charm and crept towards the source of the noise. There was another loud thud, this time much nearer.
She thought she saw a shadow flit away down the hall.
Suddenly, the door of an unused classroom opened and Nott came out. He had a very Goyle-like smirk of glee on his face as he wiped at his bruised lip. Although every inch of her body wanted to fight him Ginny restrained herself. There was an injured student in that classroom, possibly a first year, and fighting Nott would not help that student heal.
Once Nott was out of the way Ginny charmed the locked door open and crept inside. It was a girl, and not a young one. Something twisted in Ginny’s stomach as she noted the girl’s torn robes. She bent down and turned her head.
Leaping back in surprise she almost let the girl’s head fall to the ground again.
“Parkinson?” Ginny fought back revulsion as she healed the girl’s most obvious wounds. She enchanted her onto a stretcher and made it float before her.
When she was near Gryffindor Tower she removed the disillusionment charm and stepped through the portrait hole, heading straight for McGonagall’s office. She knew that the teachers were not allowed to send students to the hospital wing after hours. She knew that by coming out into the open about it she would be making it quite obvious that she was responsible for the message on the wall. But she couldn’t ignore this. It was a level of brutality she had not thought possible, especially since the girl was a Slytherin.
“What is it?” McGonagall said in alarm, throwing her door open.
“Come look,” Ginny began leading the way out the portrait hole. “It was Nott. I heard a noise and then I saw him leave the classroom and when I went in she was…”
“Oh my goodness!” McGonagall immediately began to levitate the girl in the direction of the hospital wing, ordering Ginny to follow her quietly. They were practically running.
Filch saw them and scurried off to tell Snape, but they reached the Hospital Wing before they could be stopped. Parkinson was in Madam Pomfrey’s care when Snape and the Carrows showed up.
“I’ll have you sacked for this Minerva!” Amycus said triumphantly. “You know the rule.”
“Quiet,” Snape hissed viciously. He waved Amycus away and turned to Ginny. “Explain!”
“What is there to explain, Severus,” McGonagall. “A student of your own house was brutally attacked and if Miss Weasley had not been there to bring her in then who knows what might have happened to her.”
“She won’t wake,” Madam Pomfrey chimed in. “I’m afraid it’s quite serious.”
“Nevertheless,” Snape said, “I wish to know why Miss Weasley was around to save the day and what it is, precisely that she is supposed to have saved Miss Parkinson from. Shut up, Amycus, you don’t have the authority of sack anyone.”
Ginny swallowed and recounted her tale, beginning from the crash that she had heard and completely omitting any mention of the graffiti on the wall. Snape’s face remained impassive the entire time.
“I see,” he said when she had finished her tale. “You will serve two weeks of detention with me for the defilement of Hogwarts property, Miss Weasley. I trust you know what I am talking about. Now, I suggest you all go to bed.”
By the next morning everyone had heard about what Nott had done to Pansy. It became quite clear throughout the day that Nott had not been punished at all. In fact, he seemed to have gained an, if possible, even higher status with the Carrows and some of the more brutal students for what he had done. Not many people were concerned about Parkinson, some of the Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors feeling that she had got what she deserved, but everyone was quite horrified by the nature of the harm that had been done to her.
After two days, rumors were flying that Nott had been moved into private chambers and that he had asked for his friend Zabini to be given similar treatment. Luna was telling anyone who would listen that Nott was a vampire. Ginny privately thought that he was a Death Eater, but she didn’t discuss this with anyone because it didn’t matter. Vampire, Death Eater or even Crumple-toothed Snoreback: he was a twisted, bloodthirsty fiend.
She served her detentions with Snape in the evenings, cleaning out his most foul jars and cauldrons and wondering who else was being attacked right now in the corridors. Wondering if Neville and the others had found them all or not. Wondering when they would find a proper solution to this mess that Hogwarts was in.
…
“Are you sure you don’t want to come to the feast?” Ernie said gently.
Hannah shook her head firmly. Susan squeezed her hand and, thankfully, they left without any more protests. She felt as if something inside her was threatening to burst free; as if a hundred little spells were coursing from her broken heart and out towards her fingertips and the ends of her hair. Finally, everyone was gone and she stopped fighting it.
She jumped and spun and tapped the furniture with her hands. Armchairs changed color. The plate of cookies floated and began to dance with her. The table and chairs made odd, startled leaps every once in a while. One of the plants at the far end of the room began to grow at an alarming rate without Hannah even touching it.
She closed her eyes and it began to come back to her: the happiness that had engulfed her at the dinner table as she coaxed her little cousin into eating her vegetables, the sudden dread at the arrival of the Death Eaters, fighting them with her father, their backs pressed comfortingly against each other as they fired off spells, and then the emptiness. Hannah let the emptiness and the anger grow inside her until it was a living force.
Then she opened her eyes and she let that dark, living force escape from her fingertips, from every movement that she made as she floated around the room.
The plate of cookies fell to the ground and shattered into a million pieces. The furniture began to change color again until it was all a sickly, desolate grey and black. The plant stopped growing and began turning in on itself. Hannah stopped and watched in horror as the beautiful plant strangled itself and shriveled up. She fell to her knees, confused images of her family’s last moments and her destroyed house merging with the destruction all around her.
Suddenly, something clicked, loud and sharp against the silence. Hannah looked up. Behind a large armchair that she had moved out of the way in her frenzied dance, there was a crack in the wall. She stood and moved closer to examine it. It was a hidden door and, somehow, Hannah had managed to open it. She opened it wider and peered into the dark tunnel beyond.
She knew only a moment’s hesitation before she stepped into the tunnel. The dark, earthy walls pressing in around her were almost comforting, taking her mind away from the past, away from the destruction she had caused in the common room. The only thing that mattered now was this mystery. Maybe this tunnel would help the DA somehow and she could wash away the horror of what she had just done with this good discovery.
Finally, the tunnel ended and she stood facing a rough wooden doorway. Hannah could feel the magic pulsing beneath her hands as she pushed the door open. There was a deep, but almost familiar power to this place. She stepped inside to come face to face with a bright, quiet little cottage. Many of the things here looked quite old fashioned, and she knew they must have been preserved by the magic that was in the air all around her.
But why?
Why would anyone preserve a little medieval cottage in the depths of Hogwarts? A yellow and black cloth caught her eye. It was draped across a comfortable looking chair. Hannah walked over to examine it and a fire sprung to life in the fireplace. She looked into the flames for a few seconds then turned back to the cloth and reached down to touch it.
The moment her hand connected with the soft material Hannah knew what this place was. She lifted it and examined the early version of the Hufflepuff crest. Looking around, Hannah saw a sketch of the Ravenclaw crest on a nearby table and a painted lion hanging above a writing desk. This place belonged to the Hogwarts founders. It must have been their home before they built Hogwarts. A shiver ran down her spine as she ran a hand over the back of the armchair and across the writing desk and against the frames of the paintings on the wall.
She lingered near the shuttered windows. Those windows had once looked out on the future, on the land where the founders would build their dream together, but now they were surrounded by earth and stone and the strong magic that kept Hogwarts alive. She did not try to open the shutters, but moved on to examine every little thing that the founders had left behind, her hands brushing against those ancient objects and drinking in the magic that had kept them safe for this long.
In a small, comfortable bedroom Hannah found a source of magic much stronger than anything she had felt even in this cottage. It was not only magic that preserved the object or kept it safe, there was some kind of powerful enchantment on it that she could feel just as surely as she felt her own loneliness and emptiness and anger. She moved closer cautiously, but it was only a large wooden bowl. Hannah wasn’t in Ancient Runes, but she knew that the markings down the side must have some meaning.
She pushed the parchments and quills around the bowl aside, throwing a small notebook absently onto the chair beside her. Leaning closer Hannah noted that the bowl was not empty. There was a silvery something dancing and shimmering from within. Memories. Hannah closed her eyes and fought against the memory of her father’s pensive; the one he had broken on purpose last year because he didn’t want to ever lose a single memory of the life he had lived with her mother, even temporarily.
Opening her eyes again Hannah ventured to touch a gentle hand to the markings on the rim of the bowl, wishing she could read them. Suddenly, the runes began to shift and morph until they were readable.
“Usu Memoria,” Hannah whispered and, with her hands either side of the bowl, she plunged herself into the memories.
Hannah had been in a Pensieve before, but it had never taken this long to reorient herself. She was running. She felt as if she had shrunk somehow and she could not stop running. Small houses flew by on either side of her and people called out from windows, but she did not stop. She could not stop. A gripping fear was driving her footsteps ever forward, ever faster and more desperately.
She could not even turn her head in the direction she wished. Hannah was stuck inside a morphed body, one that felt nothing like her own, and she had no control over it.
Suddenly, another woman came hurtling towards her from a nearby field and grabbed her hand. They ran together, through mud and across people’s fields until a lonely house came into view.
There was a commotion around it and Hannah could see many people carrying shovels and sticks. “Helga! Helena!” a young voice called towards them from the midst of the commotion. Hannah came to sudden halt at the voice. Red hair whipped around her face, and through it she watched the woman beside her wrench her hand away and go charging madly into the angry crowd. A girl of no more than twelve was being shoved and kicked and insulted. People were spitting at her. Her hands had been tied behind her back and blood dripped from her face.
It was such a tiny, vulnerable looking face.
The other woman, Helena, had somehow managed to break through to the center of the crowd. She was gesturing and shouting angrily now, trying to get close enough to untie the little girl. Someone pushed her aside with a shovel and she let out a cry of surprised pain.
“Helga!” the little girl called again, her eyes boring into Hannah’s now, but Hannah understood now that this was not her body: it was Helga Hufflepuff’s body.
“Witch!” a woman called from the crowd. “You don’t deserve mercy, you killed my husband – you killed my little children!”
The injustice of the claim was a poison arrow that embedded itself deep inside Helga’s heart. Hannah could feel the poisonous anger running through her. She could feel Helga fight against the urge to lash out, to use magic that would be so easy to perform, but so damning. She had to use only the most subtle forms of magic, at least until the girl had reached safety. She began quietly whispering a calming charm and, simultaneously, her hands were working a transportation charm into a small bracelet she had torn from her wrist.
Suddenly, a large burly man lashed out with his shovel. There was an explosion of blood and the girl crumpled into a bloody heap on the ground. Something broke inside Helga. A very familiar rush of anger, of uncontrollable power rushed through her, and Hannah knew what was going to happen before it did.
Hannah watched in rising horror as the other woman – Helena – rushed over to the girl and began openly reciting healing charms. The crowd went mad, rushing Helena and the dying girl with their shovels and their feet and their fists.
But already, the fires of Helga’s rage were springing up all around.
Helena had the presence of mind to Disapparate with the girl before they were both trampled. Then there was chaos. Many of the men from the crowd turned to the girl’s house with shovels and rocks and began smashing everything in sight. Helga’s fires were burning everywhere now. Men and women threw down their shovels and screamed in terror and pain as the flames ate at their clothes and skin.
Helga was afraid now. She ran through the fire and ash and screaming, trying to calm herself, trying to reach someone in the house. Hannah had not been able to control her rage, but she could feel Helga’s subsiding. She could feel a calm stamping out the anger now; and a determination to stop the destruction, to save the person inside and leave the Muggles without harm.
Spells flew from her lips; her wand was now out before her, moving wildly in the air. The old woman was cowering on her bed protesting and begging the five burly men that had reached her. They did not listen. They lashed out and landed several brutal blows before Helga’s protective spells reached the old woman.
Crack! Hannah heard the old woman’s breaking bones and Helga’s breaking control. And then chaos reigned once more. Helga sent her Portkey bracelet flying towards the old woman. Her pained cry rent the air as she disappeared. And then Hannah – Helga – collapsed to her knees. She watched the death and destruction that she was responsible for with rising fear and regret, with growing desperation, but she could not control it.
Then everything slowly faded to black.
“Hannah!” a frightened, but pleasant voice was calling out to her. She struggled to get up, to move, but she felt the same paralysis that had gripped her after the Death Eater attack on her home. She could not move or speak and she did not want to. All she wanted was to be free of the memory, of the frightening feeling that she had been, and could again be, the cause of a destructive explosion of deadly magic.
“Hannah!” the voice said again, more urgently. It was Ernie. His hands gripped her shoulders and he pulled her up to a sitting position. She could see his worried face now, but it was blurry.
Suddenly, Ernie gathered her into his arms and hugged her tightly. Painful warmth rushed through her. He whispered something in her hair and she felt a rush of energy course through her. Hannah brought her hands up behind his back and hugged him back. Hot, desperate tears flowed down her cheeks and wet his shirt. For the first time since that day Hannah was crying, painful sobs gripping her entire body. She cried for what felt like hours, years even, and she could not stop it, but Ernie never let go.
