Liam looked at the bagel from across the road, his stomach growling. He knew that he should look away now, that it was the only way to stop what would happen next, but he couldn’t. He hadn’t eaten anything except a half-burnt piece of bread that he had found near a garbage can for two whole days. He looked on in horror as the bagel began to float off the table towards him, wishing its owner would turn around and notice. He didn’t. Neither did anyone else on this busy street.
It kept floating until it was just before Liam’s nose. He caught it when it began to drop; he caught it with an invisible hand. Looking through the grayish film that stretched constantly across his eyes now, Liam saw that the man had cheerfully ordered another bagel and coffee, as if nothing had happened, as if a little thief wasn’t standing just across the street from him. This didn’t stop Liam from feeling guilty about it.
He hadn’t been able to save his parents. He had let Mahmoud, the only person that Liam knew who was still alive, run off into the night and get lost from him. And now he was becoming a thief. He deserved to be invisible. He deserved that he couldn’t see bright colors anymore.
…
Hannah could hear Ernie calling to her from the Entrance Hall, but she couldn’t look back or stop. She needed to get away. She ran as fast as she could through the grounds, not looking back, until her legs were submerged in the water of the lake all the way up to her knees. She had done it again during Transfiguration and this time one of the other students was hurt.
She fell to her knees, the freezing water coming up around her waist now. It did not drive out the image of the girl with the blood dripping from her shoulder or McGonagall’s destroyed desk. She had to stop this. She had to control it. There must be a way to stop her anger from becoming real. She would do anything for a way to use this power to help the DA, but so far, she hadn’t even been able to show them how to make the maps.
Taking a deep breath, Hannah took out her wand and summoned one of the school broomsticks. She did not know what Zabini’s motive was behind the suggestion, but flying did, at least, calm her nerves and clear her mind. Hannah was not one for regular exercise and she was already tired from running, but she spent an entire hour atop the broom, exploring the Hogwarts grounds and wondering why she, with all her power, was so weak when someone like Ginny Weasley could be so strong and determined.
After an hour Hannah alighted on the astronomy tower and stowed the broom behind an old crate that stood abandoned by the door. She knew what she had to do now.
Helga Hufflepuff was the one person in the world who would understand the things that were happening to her. That Pensieve had been full of memories. Somewhere in there must be her answer. Somewhere in those memories Hannah would find out how to turn that uncontrollable angry power into something that could build a great place like Hogwarts and Hufflepuff house.
…
Liam shrunk back against a wall as the fires erupted everywhere around him. The men in masks stopped attacking people and tried using their lightsabers to shoot out water and put it out, but it wouldn’t go out. Everyone was screaming now: the little girl they had been pointing their lightsabers at, the people passing on the street and even the masked men, whose black cloaks had caught fire, were crying out in pain.
His back connected with the wall and Liam’s cloudy vision began to blur even more, fiery shadows dancing in front of everything. He understood now. He was the one who had made the fires when those men had attacked his parents. He would never be a firefighter. He had burned everything down instead of saving his family and now he was burning this whole street and he couldn’t stop it.
Liam closed his eyes, wondering how much he would be able to see when he opened them again.
Suddenly, there were loud popping noises all around him and new voices began to shout over the screaming and chaos. “Who did this?” he heard someone shout. Liam’s eyes flew open.
He turned and ran, as fast as his feet could carry him, because he knew that the men with lightsabers would be after him if they found out it was him and they would probably find him, even if he was invisible.
…
Hannah took a long, deep breath as she stared into the Pensieve. She opened her mouth to say the incantation, but then she remembered that she had not locked the door behind her. She turned and locked the door to Helga’s room, wondering if Ernie or Susan would be able to open it and find her if something happened.
She shook her head and turned back to the bowl of memories. “Usu Memoria!”
Hannah plunged her head in.
This time it did not feel as strange or as disorienting to be inside Helga’s Hufflepuff’s mind and body. Hannah could feel a tired kind of peace creep into her heart. Helga was looking out across a lake at a small cottage in the distance. A warm, comfortable hand was in hers.
“It will be great, Helga,” a man said from beside her. “You were brilliant to bring us all here together, to unite us in this worthy task.”
“Do you think Helena will survive, Salazar?” Helga whispered worriedly. She looked up at the man.
Salazar shook his head slowly. “The hope is very faint. She was always too reckless, too thoughtless in flinging herself into danger. If she does not survive our school should only have four houses, we should not think of bringing someone else to…”
“No one can take her place,” Helga agreed. There was a short companionable silence in which Hannah wondered at the strangeness of standing there and holding Salazar Slytherin’s hand.
Helga was the one who eventually broke the silence. “Rowena is going to name her baby Helena if it’s a girl,” she said.
“Has Godric spoken to you yet?” Salazar asked, turning to face her.
“Yes,” Hannah nodded, “he doesn’t – no one understands. I can’t control it. It is difficult enough to suppress this strange power within me… no matter how strong I become I cannot risk trying to use it – I cannot risk the consequences.”
“Our world needs this power, Helga. Why do you think it was given to you? You have called it Dark Magic, I know, but it cannot be evil magic without evil intent. Do not say anything now. You know many will try to use this power for their own ends; you know that as long as you are in the Wizarding World, you will see the longing in men’s eyes to have your power on their side – to have it for themselves. So one day, not soon, because you must recover now and come to terms with it, but one day you will have to make your own decision about your power. You will have to learn to use and control it if you want to serve our world … and our dream!”
“If only we hadn’t been at war with the Muggles,” Helga said wistfully. “I do not think I would have known that I possessed this power at all.”
“Exactly, my dear, your power is a gift to us, a weapon sharper than Godric’s steel sword.”
The excited look in Salazar’s eyes made Helga shrink back a little. She shook her head and led the way back to the cottage, but it would not be any better there. She knew she would find the same hungry look in Godric’s eyes. They did not understand, but Helga knew that Salazar was right: as long as she lived in this world she would have to use the power that she was given, and she would have to be on her guard at every moment because everyone around her would want to direct it to their own uses.
Hannah came out of the memory shivering. She knew there was more, but she did not want to see it. Helga Hufflepuff did not have any answers. She had been as confused and lost as Hannah was now. Seeing those memories only resulted in sending shivers of fear up Hannah’s spine; she learned things through those memories that complicated her problem, things she would much rather not know.
