章 2246: 5
Intercession by VigoGrimborne
Chapter 5
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
The forest was shadowed and dense, uncomfortably cold with an edge of headache-inducing magic saturating everything, down to the smallest fern. Unaccountably exotic magical creatures used it as a hunting ground, and Dementors would be stalking come dusk, seeking the soul of a specific man but likely willing to suck out any they happened across in his stead. Up in a tree and well out of sight of the children, a fugitive watched, looking for proof that she was who she claimed to be. That he had another, currently unconscious fugitive in his pocket as a rat was inconsequential, another crumb of danger and inconvenience on top of the pile.
There were better places for teary reunions, for sure. Less dangerous places.
Taylor was here, though, and her son was here too. All else was secondary, so long as it didn't interfere in her listening as her son told of his first two years at Hogwarts, occasionally interrupted or corrected by one of his three friends.
Harry spoke of classes and friends and dangers, and of a Headmaster who lied to him in the cruelest of ways. He spoke of working to be accepted as Harry Hebert, though everyone seemed to think otherwise at first glance, and of the many magical things he had learned and done.
It seemed to her that there were two of Harry; one who was enraptured with magic and his school, and another who dealt with the pressure of his peers and teachers, fought off spirits intent on murdering him, and defied the Headmaster while worrying all the while that his mother had abandoned him. His school experience so far was at least better than hers, but he did not clear her low bar by the lofty heights she would have hoped for.
He made her so proud, and so sad. Proud that he had soldiered on, made friends, learned and plotted and fought for what he thought was right. Sad, that he had done all of that without her help, advice, or even just knowing that he had her support every step of the way.
Some of that was attributable to him growing up and her having to let go as he became more independent, but he was only thirteen. The larger part of her sadness was a certain white-bearded meddler's fault.
The way Harry recounted Dumbledore's repeated lies, and how he carefully did not say how they made him feel, put Taylor in mind of a certain inviolable figure and body bags filled with fake corpses, the buzz of her implacable hate–
But that was long ago, and Dumbledore was not within reach. Lucky for him. She could put her anger aside. He had stolen two years of her watching her son grow up and tried to make her son think she had rejected him, and for that there would be a reckoning some day. Just not today.
Today, she sat and took in every little detail during the limited time they had available, perched on a gnarled upturned root. Harry sat next to her, tucked up against her bad side like he used to do when he was smaller. His head came up to just under her stump now.
His friends stood nearby, more standoffish though by no means as hostile as they probably should have been. They took Harry's word that this was her. She looked at them, too, taking in the little things.
Neville, the only boy of the three, was a forgettable lad, though he looked to be getting a set of broad shoulders as he aged and had noticeably calloused hands. Hermione, bushy-haired and confident, was fiddling with her wand, visibly uneasy. Maybe with the forest, maybe with Taylor herself. But she smiled as Harry recounted their adventures, and Taylor didn't think Hermione was worried about her being a danger so much as her disappointing Harry in some way.
Ginny, on the other hand, was very much a threat still. She was a half-visible figure, stood behind Hermione and Neville, and she had only partially removed her invisibility cloak at Harry's insistence. She was one of the red-headed brood Taylor had run into at the platform, that was obvious, but she had a hard look about her. She alone of the four looked like she knew the risks of this meeting, knew and not just understood in abstract.
Taylor had thought as much before Harry's stories revealed that Ginny had been the 'heir of Slytherin' and possessed for much of a school year, so she knew it was not just her perception being primed to think of Ginny as more worldly and cynical. That did explain it, though.
Of them, Taylor thought she would get along easiest with Ginny, but they were all loyal, deserving friends from everything Harry said.
Harry ran out of things to say soon after recounting his journey to their home – unluckily occurring soon after she had taken her vacation to stay in Hogsmeade, ironically enough – and their aborted plans for a second rule-breaking expedition to find her. He looked up at her, his story done, and asked the obvious question. "How did you end up here, anyway?"
"And with Luna Lovegood in on it?" Ginny added suspiciously.
Taylor smiled grimly and decided to give them as much of the truth as was wise to tell, namely everything but the origin of 'her' magic and her personal origins. She didn't want to tell Harry of the latter until he was old enough that she wouldn't have to censor her story to the point where it was unrecognizable… So, ideally when he was in his mid-thirties.
"It began with meeting Dumbledore on the day Harry was going to go to Hogwarts," she explained. "I said hello. He said 'obliviate' and removed every memory I had relating to Harry."
It shouldn't have been so gratifying to see their appalled shock, but it was. From there she succinctly told of what she had done and experienced, quickly glossing over her time obliviated, and portraying the return of her power as magic she had never known she had finally breaking free of what she later learned from Ollivander was an inherited blood curse of some kind. She spoke of the Aurors drowning her case in apathy – an unpleasant parallel to her time in high school, now that she thought about it – and being obliviated a second time, though it barely stuck long enough for them to leave her alone afterward.
Then she explained that she had placed trackers on students in an attempt to find Hogwarts on foot, and how she had noticed Sirius Black hiding in plain sight. Jaws actually dropped when she explained how she had approached the dangerous Death Eater, and that they had teamed up to get Harry from Hogwarts. Even Harry was staring at her like she was absolutely insane.
Ginny began palming her wand and twitching her cloak at the mention of Sirius Black, so Taylor skipped over most of the stakeout and the arguments Sirius had used to get her to infiltrate Hogwarts, rushing to the part where they caught the animagus rat hiding with Ron Weasley.
Ginny's nervous tics intensified, her lips flattening to a grim line. None of the other children seemed to grasp exactly how disgusting and potentially horrible the implications of that were, but her… She got it. Taylor resolved to threaten the rat into answering a few pointed questions about his time with the Weasleys soon, to hopefully deliver some peace of mind to Ginny. She still had Pettigrew, currently held by Sirius. He wouldn't get away.
"So, the Death Eater was no Death Eater at all, and was only working with me because he wanted help getting the real traitor," she concluded. "Once we knew we were still working for the same things, albeit not the things we had told each other to begin with, we stopped trying to fight. Luna volunteered to take a message, and it seemed like a low-risk opportunity, so we let her."
"He's not around now, is he?" Harry asked, nervously glancing at the many places a person could hide from sight. The forest was dense and foliage broke line of sight almost immediately. He never even thought to look up.
"He's guarding Pettigrew," she told him. It was true, and this way she didn't have to deal with introducing Black. One thing at a time.
"Good." Harry grimaced. "So far, people who knew Harry Potter's parents don't tend to like me very much."
"Sirius Black can wait," Hermione suggested. "At least until he gets his name cleared."
"We have been here for a while," Neville chimed in. "Do we know how much longer we have before the Dementors come back?"
As much as Taylor hated it, their time was all but up… And she couldn't see a way to remove Harry from the school without immediately precipitating his subsequent return. If he disappeared, there would be a manhunt. If she took him and let Dumbledore know, there would probably still be a manhunt. Sirius Black was on the loose, after all, and public speculation had him possibly coming after Harry. Then there was the matter of whether Harry would want to go, in such a scenario.
She had been hasty with ambushing Luna and it worked out in the end, but that did not mean leaping on the first opportunity without thinking through the consequences was a good habit to fall into. "I will come see you again, and soon," she vowed. "Do you know of any way we can communicate without it being intercepted?"
"You didn't get any of my letters, I expect?" Harry asked.
"None." She wondered where they had gone. She wanted them, if they still existed somewhere. Maybe they were simply stuck in some pile of undeliverable mail at the magical post office.
"I left a note under your pillow, when I visited the house," Harry reminded her. "Go through the Grangers, they can get a message to me."
"I'll do that." She stood, her knees creaking at the unexpected weight, and turned to wrap her good arm around her son's shoulders. "I'm not going to disappear again. Obliviations don't work on me anymore."
"And that's worth looking into," she heard Hermione mutter to Neville. "The books I've read all say obliviation isn't easy to undo on purpose, let alone accidentally."
"It would be good to know how to not be obliviated," Neville agreed.
Harry's friends began the walk back out of the Forbidden Forest, Harry trailing along behind them. He looked back several times before passing out of sight.
She had seen him. He knew she was there for him, and she knew he was mostly okay. Now she just had to figure out the rest. The hard part was done.
Sirius had a camp, deep in the Forbidden Forest. It was little more than a ring of rocks, an old fire he relit with magic, and a hole for his dog form to curl up in, but it was enough for him to survive. Taylor had a hotel room, but she wasn't willing to keep a prisoner there, so Pettigrew was the newest addition to Sirius' sad little setup.
The obese, haggard rat of a man hanging upside-down from a tree definitely didn't improve the atmosphere. Neither did Sirius flicking rocks at him from where he sat by the fire.
"Harry is safe, and aside from Dumbledore lying to his face, is happy," she summarized, getting straight to the point. "According to Dumbledore as told to Harry, I decided I hate magic, and by extension him, and never wanted to see him again. Believe me now?"
"Do you think the old man's gone senile?" Sirius asked. It seemed he did believe her.
"I wouldn't bet on it." It wasn't a badly-executed plan. Most children would not have the resources or the will to sneak halfway across a country to search a house they had been told was empty, and none would do so after taking no action for two whole years. Bereft of actual evidence, there was nothing to stop the man from telling Harry whatever he wanted, so long as it was realistic, and Dumbledore had chosen a lie that was probably rooted in truth. Other Muggle parents likely had done what he pretended Taylor had done.
"Can't see why he would shove you aside like that, then," Sirius admitted. "Maybe he decided you're a bad influence?"
"I am not." If only because she knew to be mindful of what she taught Harry growing up, directly and by example. She could have been a very bad mother, turning him into a little soldier suspicious of absolutely everyone and willing to resort to lethal force whenever he deemed necessary. If she led by example without moderating herself, that was likely what he would have turned out to be. It probably wouldn't have helped her cope in her daily life, either.
Instead, she had made every effort to be the kind of person she wanted a child of hers to copy. Dragon was the closest real-life inspiration, unerringly kind without being naive or unintelligent. Taylor was not Dragon, and neither did she think Dragon was perfect, but she knew she had succeeded in raising her son well.
"You haven't told me to take Pettigrew down yet," Sirius remarked, oblivious to her continued musing on motherhood.
She looked over at the murderer dangling from his ankles. "I'm not certain he didn't molest the Weasleys while hiding as their rat, so you can practice stoning him until he faints," she said seriously. "Is he silenced?" She noticed that his eyes were open… and rolling madly in his flushed red face.
"He won't faint, I hit him with a bloodflow charm first," Sirius said darkly. "What's this about the Weasleys?"
"Rat sleeping on a thirteen-year-old boy's chest," she reminded him. "Presumably alone with young children all the time. With access to a wand, the obliviation charm, and who knows what else." Access to two wands, even. She'd found his holdout wand quickly enough. Even little girls like Luna Lovegood merited a thorough patdown upon being captured; Pettigrew was lucky she hadn't deemed a cavity search necessary. Sirius was also lucky she had decided against that, because if it needed to be done she would have made him do it.
"Hmm…" Sirius flicked his wand at a pebble, roughly levitating it at Pettigrew with a muttered incantation. "Do you think I stand a chance of being acquitted if I only show his dead body with the Dark Mark? I don't have one and he shouldn't have one, so that should be enough evidence." He might not have been guilty of the treachery and murders that saw him in Azkaban, but Taylor didn't doubt for a second that he was capable of such things when it came to Pettigrew.
Pettigrew began to struggle, though it got him nowhere. Neither of them paid him any mind… Save for the thousands of insects Taylor was keeping at the ready specifically to stop any budding escape attempts, should they occur. She could afford to ignore him with her physical human body; nothing within her range was truly ignored.
"Let's talk about that." She sat by the fire, warming her hand. It had begun to drizzle on her way back from the forest's edge, and she was cold to her bones. "What do you want with Harry?"
"To protect him, he's my godson," was Sirius' answer.
"Yes, but what do you want after that?" she pressed. "Keeping him in protective custody until he dies of old age can't be your entire plan."
"I want…" Sirius shrugged. "If he was in a bad home I'd want custody, but you seem alright for a terrifying dark witch. Got a house?"
"Yes." She turned to get her stump closer to the heat of the fire.
"Muggle or magical?" he asked.
"Muggle, but it's just us so we can integrate some magic." She would like a few magical defense systems, at a bare minimum. Once she knew enough to set them up herself.
"Money?" Sirius continued.
"Enough." Her vacation time was going to run out soon, though. She needed to master a form of magical transportation, but she had yet to hear of one that wasn't conspicuous or possibly life threatening to learn by extended trial and error.
"Perfect role model?" he asked.
"I've never once encouraged him to suffocate someone with live spiders," she said.
Sirius opened his mouth, paused, and then paled drastically. "Let's put that at 'no, but neither am I' and leave it there," he concluded. "He likes you, that's bloody obvious, so I don't need custody. Assuming you can get it, that is."
"That's why I'm asking what you're going for," she said, her voice heavy. "We, together, have two problems. You are a fugitive, and I am a persona non grata with the Headmaster, and by extension the Aurors and probably just the magical government overall. You show your face, you get a Dementor set on it. I show my face, I get another thorough obliviation."
"Can't believe I'm saying this, but it'll probably be easier to get me cleared," Sirius admitted. "We have the evidence." He flicked another pebble at Pettigrew. "And I know what I'm framed for. You've got no clue what Dumbledore is thinking, and no way to ask him while being sure he'll tell the truth and let you keep the memory. I'd say have Harry ask, but he already has and got an earful of lies for his trouble."
"If I confront Dumbledore," Taylor began.
"You get an obliviation, or he pulls out some excuse," Sirius finished for her. "It's difficult to say. I'm used to the old man being on my side. Sure it wasn't Malfoy or somebody else impersonating him?"
"In the Headmaster's office, multiple years in a row, without anyone catching on?" she asked. If it was just her experiences she might buy that it was an imposter, but Harry corroborated her story at every turn.
"There is that." He flicked another stone, this one bouncing off Pettigrew's forehead. "If we get me cleared, I could pretend I don't know you exist and try to get guardianship of him. I'd have some pull, as his godfather, and Dumbledore has to have something in place to stop people from investigating where Harry's been, so it's not likely they'll contact you for a custody hearing or the like. Dumbledore would also think I'm on his side, because I was before and I'm certainly not going to throw in with the Pureblood wankers, so he probably won't object."
"Which gets you Harry, but not me," Taylor pointed out.
"Harry's a kid, but he's not going to be one for that long," Sirius pointed out. "Only a few summers until he's legally an adult. Throw on a magical disguise in case someone comes over, take a new name, stay with him wherever I'm staying, and you can have custody in all but the legal documents. I'm probably better as the fun Uncle, anyway. I wasn't cut out for parenting before Azkaban."
It was informal enough to make her itch – what if Sirius decided to change the deal? – but she didn't see a better plan that got around Dumbledore without him having a chance to screw her over. Either way, they were assuming Harry would be in Hogwarts nine months of the year, where she couldn't even openly write to him.
She wasn't happy with that. "What alternatives are there to Hogwarts?" she asked.
"Don't be magic," Sirius scoffed. "Magical schooling isn't compulsory, but if he drops out now they'll snap his wand and he'll either need to get one illegally, move out of the country, or live a magicless life."
Leaving the country might work as a last resort, but she didn't like the idea of trying to move to an entirely different magical society. That could come with its own set of problems. Living without magic, on the other hand… "Is that even possible?" Powers needed to be used, but magic didn't follow the same rules and compulsions. Maybe a wizard or witch really could give up using their magic and live out their lives like that.
"Sure, but it sucks arse and nobody does it," Sirius said. "Even Muggleborn who don't plan to stay in the Wizarding world stay long enough get their OWLS so their wands aren't snapped, then just use magic when they can get away with it among the Muggles. Which Harry can't do for a few more years, at which point there's no reason to do it, because he'll only be a year or two away from it not mattering."
"Is it possible for me to enter the castle on a regular basis, using some sort of excuse?" she asked. "I can't stand the thought of leaving him there. If I could even just visit him on weekends, that would be enough. I never wanted to send him to a boarding school, schools are bad enough when you can come home at the end of the day." If it really was the only school around, maybe it had options for those who needed to learn later in life, but she didn't think she could enroll under a secret identity and have it last longer than a few days.
"Bad school experience?" Sirius asked.
"I dropped out of high school when I figured out that career criminals were nicer than my classmates," she said seriously. "Not before they put me in the hospital, though."
"Okay…" Sirius held up a finger. "I do have that. At least I graduated."
She had graduated, in fact, just not from Winslow, but she was happy to let the subject drop. Thankfully he wasn't the sort to dig into what she had said; she probably should have been more circumspect. Then again, he probably didn't think her example of career criminals was a literal one.
"But to answer your question, assuming things haven't changed since I was there, no." He shook his head. "Not happening. You'd need to replace Filch, or…"
He lifted a pebble to flick at Pettigrew, then stopped.
Taylor turned to look at Pettigrew. His eyes were closed, and he flinched at the sudden silence. She needed to remember to keep her cards close to her chest around him, too, though any plan they concocted would involve obliviating him of this discussion. There was always the chance he would play to his animal form and rat her out for something…
An idea occurred to her. "Sirius," she asked, "how hard is it–"
"To turn into an animal and pretend to be a pet?" He frowned. "I was thinking about that. But your bloodline curse…"
"I can learn some things." What her power could and could not do seemed to follow a pattern, but not one she fully understood. Turning into an animal didn't seem entirely outside the realm of possibility.
"Being an animagus is difficult and time-consuming, most people can't do it or don't want to put in the effort." He shrugged his shoulders. "If you can do it, you might not be an animal that could pose as a pet. If you could and you were a cat or something, then apparently all you have to do is get a student to claim you and nobody will suspect a thing." He threw the pebble at Pettigrew.
"Can't hurt to look into." She didn't think they had any better options, assuming she wasn't willing to assassinate Dumbledore and cut the Gordian knot that way. He was a bastard and responsible for a lot of grief, but he was the sort of bastard whose death would have consequences. Turning into an animal might work as a less messy long-term plan. "In the meantime, do you have anywhere to go that isn't this forest? Somewhere you can keep a prisoner." They didn't need to lurk in the Forbidden Forest anymore.
"I was going to say no, but then you said prisoner and I was reminded that my family has a townhouse," Sirius said thoughtfully. "And believe it or not, it has actual prison cells."
Number Twelve Grimmauld Place was grim, ugly, and gave Taylor a headache the moment she stepped inside. The magic protecting it from being seen had her power radiating surprise and consternation, though as far as she could tell it was just another password-protected Stranger effect. The magic inside…
It did not make her confident when her power suggested she be cautious. Even the man-eating, uncontrollable magic spiders in the forest didn't provoke that kind of response.
"Off to the cells, traitor rat," Sirius said dully. "Merlin, I hate this place… Don't touch anything if you want to live!" he added as he disappeared through one of the cobweb-laden doorways.
Taylor cautiously walked down the hall, spreading her personal supply of flies and other insects through the building. If there were any magical bugs in residence her power had yet to add them to her control. There were no mundane bugs to be found beyond those she brought with her, which was troubling. A place as decrepit as this ought to be crawling with them.
The townhouse, which was what it was, magical or not, was big. It had dozens of rooms, hallways, a truly disgusting line of hunting trophies of some sort of humanoid with big ears–
And a living humanoid with big ears, shuffling about in a little cubby behind the ancient kitchen. Taylor already had her wand out, but she clutched it tightly as her insects gave her a gradually improving impression of the potential squatter. It was small, perhaps tall enough to reach her waist if it stood up straight. Long, droopy ears dangled to either side of a peculiarly ugly face with big eyes. It muttered in a deep monotone, and wore nothing but a scraggly piece of fabric that barely concealed the fact that it was male. As she watched through her insects it shuffled around with a stooped back, muttering semi-coherently about a 'Mistress' and 'someone at the door'. That it – he – could talk made her think he wasn't just some ugly humanoid animal, despite the hunting trophies.
Sirius returned, brushing silvery powder from his hands, and spread his arms wide. "Behold the glory of my barmy family," he proclaimed, gesturing to the dark wallpaper, ugly candle sconces, and general decrepitude of the hallway.
"Sirius, does your family have a small, possibly insane servant?" Taylor asked. "Or should we be ready to fight off a squatter?" The little person was straightening up, grumbling to himself in a continuous monotone.
"Oh, bugger, Kreacher." He dragged his palm down his face.
The little person popped out of existence behind the kitchen and into existence in the hallway. "Kreacher does not want to be here," he croaked.
"Neither do I," Sirius muttered. "Kreacher, you obey me now, right?"
"Kreacher obeys Mistress…" he huffed a low sigh. "And Master blood traitor."
"Okay, no, I'm not doing this right now." Sirius scowled at the little thing. "You… Don't leave this building, don't speak to anyone except me, don't let anyone know I'm here or allow them to find out if you can stop them… Just don't do anything except cleaning this miserable house."
"Master blood traitor has seen better days," Kreacher croaked. "Kreacher hopes he does not see many more." He popped back out of existence.
"I hate this place," Sirius complained.
Down the hall, a pair of curtains swept open of their own accord. A painting of a truly ugly old woman exploded into motion and noise, screaming madly, endless epithets spewing out of her flat face.
Taylor was beginning to hate this place, too.
Taylor's vacation from her job at the library ended well before Sirius managed to make Grimmauld Place fit for human habitation, and it was with very little regret that she left him to handle it on his own, in favor of the clean, well-lit and headache free library.
Her fellow librarians welcomed her back with open arms, and for once she was able to consciously answer their questions about Harry. He was well, she had gone up to visit him at his school, something they were only now allowing. He had interesting friends, and he was doing well in his classes – though that was purely conjecture as Harry hadn't mentioned his academic performance at all.
Her coworkers aside, her job was… tolerable. She had thought fondly of it while she was mapping out Dementor routes and dealing with Black, but even though she could go through a day without gritting her teeth through a headache, she found that part of her now missed the magical world while she wasn't in it. For all the hardship she had endured at the business end of Dumbledore's wand, the majority of the magical world was a fascinating mystery with many potential advantages for the taking if she only spent the time exploring and finding the things most worth learning. Time spent at the library, reshelving books and upgrading the technical infrastructure, felt like time wasted just to earn enough money to continue paying rent.
It might, she reflected, soon be time for a change in occupation. Once she had the Harry situation fully sorted out, or once something made her current job untenable instead of merely unsatisfying. She didn't have time right now to figure out what else she might like to do on top of everything else going on in her life.
Thankfully, while she spent her weekdays fiddling with old-fashioned computer systems and negotiating new book purchases, magic was never very far away. Number Twelve Grimmauld Place was within driving distance, and the evenings and weekends were hers to do with as she pleased.
At first she just helped Sirius make it habitable; it would be their secure base of operations, now that they didn't need to stake out Hogwarts, and if their plans for him taking custody of Harry panned out he might have to live there for a time. Then, of course, there was planning for clearing his name. Taylor was not content to just toss Pettigrew to the nearest Auror and trust that justice would take its course. She had been burned far too often, on multiple worlds no less, to leave it to chance. The same applied to her backup plan of becoming an animagus, which was also developed in the weeks that followed.
"This," Sirius had said one weekend, presenting her with a glass of yellow snot-like liquid, "is a spirit journey potion."
"What does it do?" she asked, setting the glass down on the kitchen table. Said table squeaked, and not in the 'wood rubbing on wood' way, so she hit it with a stupefy just to be safe.
"Some people get visions, some just lose their balance," Sirius explained, ignoring the byplay of the anomalously noisy piece of furniture, which continued to squeak despite her stunning spell leaving a scuff mark on one of its legs. "The main purpose is to get high and have visions, but a little-known side effect is that if you throw it up while thinking about being an animagus, it'll show you what you're most likely to be."
"That sounds arcane and unreliable even by the standards of magic," she said.
"It's bordering on Divination, so yes." He crossed his arms. "Four of us tried it. The only one who got a different animal was me, and it was only off in predicting the breed of dog. There are better potions, but this one gets Muggles high just like wizards, so I figure it's most likely to work on you."
"When you put it like that…" They'd long since passed the point of mutual distrust, and he would die a painful death no matter how fast-acting a poison he used if he did betray her, so she wasn't too worried about this being some sort of ploy. She took the cup and downed the contents before she could second-guess herself.
"Please have crazy visions, please have crazy visions," Sirius said as they waited.
Taylor felt the sudden urge to sit down before she faceplanted on the kitchen counter. She braced herself against the tabletop with her hand and took a deep breath. "Dizziness."
"Darn." He pointed his wand at her. "Now don't hex me for this, you know you need to throw up."
"Do it." He cast, and she choked out the potion, along with her breakfast and the remnants of her last dinner. The potion was clearly discernible from the more mundane stomach contents, and the yellow puddle formed out of it was a recognizable silhouette, that of a…
"Praying mantis?" Sirius said. "That's rare. Really small things are. Not bad, though!"
"No." A thousand times no. She wiped her lips on the sleeve of her robe. "Easily killed, even by accident. Prey to all sorts of common animals. Slow. Bad senses. Highly visible."
Most importantly, it was an insect. She had no idea what the ramifications of turning into a bug while having a power that totally and utterly controlled all bugs might be. Possibly nothing, but it was also possible if she did that she would be handing her power complete control of her body until it chose to turn her back. If it ever did turn her back. They were on relatively good terms now, and her power was being cooperative, but she would never take that chance. She didn't trust it, she just knew that their interests currently aligned. There was a big difference.
"Glad we ruled this out right away, then," Sirius said. "The actual process takes months."
"I can't be an animagus." It was a shame, she liked the idea of being able to turn into an animal and roam unnoticed… It had certainly served Sirius and Pettigrew quite well.
"No, not if you don't want to be a praying mantis." He waggled his eyebrows. "Afraid of being an ugly bug, are we? Would you do it if you were a butterfly?"
"I can terrorize you solely with butterflies, if you want," she offered. "I've done it before."
"The scary part is I believe you," he said with a shudder. "If you can't be an animagus, your options for being an animal are very limited. Human transfiguration reverts quickly, and you can't do it to yourself. You'd need a curse, and a reversible one at that. It would have to be dark, too, else it would be well-known."
"You have a library of dark books." One infested with book-spirits, but that was apparently a minor matter. She really needed to get a sense of what constituted a real threat in the magical world; she would have thought spirits would rank highly, but apparently the books themselves were more dangerous by far.
"I'll look for something without horrible side-effects." He pointed an accusatory finger at her. "Don't go pawing through them on your own! You might count as a Muggle to some of the enchantments."
"I'll use bugs, don't worry."
"Bugs might count as Muggles too," Sirius said thoughtfully. "You know what, go ahead with the bugs. I've always wanted to see what some of those traps do."
Harry always liked watching the mail owls, but he watched them so hard the week after reuniting with Taylor that on three separate occasions fellow Hufflepuffs asked him if he was waiting for mail, or looking to get one as a familiar.
Hermione, sitting at the Ravenclaw table on the other side of the hall, had set up a signal she could flash him if she got mail. Thumbs up for normal mail, thumbs down if his mum had included something. He may have precipitated that development by finding excuses to go see her every morning to check.
Nine days after meeting with Taylor, he got the long-awaited thumbs down. That afternoon, she passed over a simple folded sheet of notebook paper. "My parents and I are pretty sure nobody is looking in our mail at all, so they just sent her letter without converting it to a code or anything," Hermione explained. "They wrote me about her, too. She left the letter in their mailbox with a cover letter introducing herself."
"That sounds like mum…" No lingering where she might be spotted. She could do a good impression of a spy from the movies when she felt like it.
"They wanted to meet her, not get mail from her," Hermione laughed. "Tell her that when you write her back."
Harry took his letter down to his room to read.
'Harry,' it read. 'I hope this reaches you safely. I am working on ways to see you. Until then (and it will be soon, I promise), I have some questions. How are you doing for money? I know I gave you some when you left for your first year, but I can't imagine you have any left now. I can send some with the next letter. What do you think of your house? Are the houses in Hogwarts like they were described in the book? Do you know any Slytherins personally, like you do Ravenclaws and Gryffindors? Do you have any friends in Hufflepuff? Do you have a favorite subject? Favorite teacher? Least favorite of either? Rivals? Enemies?'
His mum really wrote differently than she talked. He could only imagine that list of questions delivered in a breathless rush, like Hermione might ask if she was in a hurry, but his mum never talked like that.
'I want to wait until I see you to ask,' the letter continued, 'but I know that might not be as soon as either of us hopes. Until then, have fun at school! I might not like Dumbledore because of what he did (I was perfectly willing to like him prior to that), but I can tell you love it there. It's magic, I understand why. Maybe you can show me what you know sometime soon. Love, mum.'
He pulled out his pen and paper to write a reply immediately. For once, he knew she would be getting his letter.
'Mum,' he wrote, 'Hermione says her parents want to meet you. They're probably not being watched. If you want to be sneaky, maybe arrange to meet them at the store or something.'
'I still have a little money. There isn't anything to buy at Hogwarts, and Neville's gran paid for my school supplies over the summers. I only really spend it on birthday and Christmas presents for my friends. I wouldn't say no to some more, though.'
'The houses here are like they were described in the book, but more… important? There are rivalries and a lot of the time I think it's all a bit stupid. Slytherin has a lot of bigots. Gryffindor has a lot of shouty jerks who always pull out their wands whenever someone looks at them funny. Ravenclaw has snooty condescending arses. Hufflepuff spreads gossip like wildfire. Sometimes those things matter more than who is supposed to be smart or brave or cunning, and sometimes it really doesn't matter at all what house someone is in. I don't have any real friends in Slytherin or Hufflepuff, but that's not because they're worse. I just don't see many Slytherins, and everyone in Hufflepuff is friendly, but I wouldn't say any of them are my friends, specifically. I didn't really seek out my friends. It just happened. It hasn't happened for anyone in those two houses yet.'
He tapped his pen on the paper. Really, he didn't have any close friends in Hufflepuff because everyone was already vaguely friendly. Nobody stood out to him, and nobody had approached him, or vice versa. Hermione, Neville, Ginny… Hermione had come to him and they had a common interest. Neville had hosted him over the summer. Ginny had unwillingly threatened his life, and then been saved by him. Those things set them apart from everyone else.
That seemed like something he could explain better in person. His mum would understand. She didn't have… any close friends, as far as he knew, but she had told him about several childhood friends back in America.
'My favorite subject… Can I say none, but I love learning things they don't teach in class? Flying was fun, but that only lasted a few weeks in my first year. History of Magic, but only because Hermione and I come up with our own study plans and ignore Binns. He teaches the same thing every year. I learned an exorcism spell looking up Japanese ghosts and it saved Ginny's life…'
He went on about some of his favorite spells and interesting things he had read for a while, going over things he had put in previous letters which she never got to read.
'As for enemies or rivals? I'm in Hufflepuff, nobody considers us enemies. Sheep to be ignored or led, maybe. That's mostly the Slytherins and a few Gryffindors, though. Draco Malfoy is a foul-mouthed bigot who slings insults around, but he's Ronald Weasley's mortal enemy, not mine. I think he would be a lot worse if he wasn't so preoccupied with putting Ron down. They both go at it on a daily basis. Professor Snape might be my enemy. He hates me. I think it's a Potter thing. He's had it out for me since my first day, Hermione can attest to that. But he just insults me and my work, and I'm not bad at potions, so I can ignore him. Mostly.'
He scowled at the paper. Snape was an arse, but after three years his attitude was old hat. Harry just sat through Potions and then did his best to forget the experience immediately after. His extracurricular studying on the subject was enough to keep his grades up regardless of Snape's attitude or critical grading.
'My grades (I know you were wondering) have been very good so far. I would include my report card from the end of last term, but I don't know where I put my copy. Duplicates are supposed to be mailed to you, as my parent, but I don't think you got any of them. I have been getting high grades in every class. Really. Hermione, Ginny, and I are ahead in everything. Neville isn't quite so far ahead, but he is a Herbology genius.'
He could probably go on at length about his friends, but he was running out of space on the page and he wanted to keep his first letter short so it would be easy to hide among Hermione's voluminous return letter.
'I have questions for you too, but I want to wait and ask them. Will you be able to see me before winter break? If Dumbledore holds to his pattern, he will force me to stay here. I don't know if the Dementors will be gone by then. Probably not if Black remains at large. What's the plan for that? Love, Harry.'
"Got it." Sirius let a thick-cover book thump down on the table. It squeaked again.
Taylor leaned down to look at the table from underneath, despite having already gone over it with the fine-tooth comb known as termites. She would have bet money that freezing the damn thing would kill whatever kept squeaking, but apparently not. "A better mousetrap?" she asked.
"No, the curse you need." Sirius flipped the book open as she straightened up. "Here." He poked a looping illustration of a bound man shifting into a donkey. "Minus Quam Humano."
The illustration certainly made it look like a dark curse; the man's face was frozen in a rictus of agony, and his donkey form shuddered, cruelly constricted by the already tight ropes tying him down.
"What's it do?" she asked, seeing that the writing wasn't in English.
"Cast it, turns the target into an animal of your choice," he explained, pulling out the other chair to sit down across from her. "It's a nasty one, and the transformation hurts. Less if you're not tied up, as I understand it, but still painful. You'll be saddled with some of the animal's instincts, but less than an animagus would develop, and nothing permanent. The curse lasts indefinitely."
"So I'd be stuck as an animal until… when?" It might last indefinitely, but Sirius knew she didn't want to be a cat or the like for the rest of her life. "Is there some arcane bullshit requirement to turn back?"
"Nah, you just have to get the countercurse cast on you… By the same person who cast the curse." He grimaced at the book, began to turn the page, then apparently thought better of it. "There's another method to turn back without the original caster, but it's not tenable unless you find a few virgins you'd like to sacrifice. This one's got a history of being used to fuck with rival dark families, and they developed the most sadistic possible way to undo it, to the point where the curse fell out of favor because it racked up too high a bodycount for a curse meant to not kill the victim."
"Any side effects? Reasons I can't cast it and then cast the countercurse whenever I want?" It was dark because it hurt and because it was meant to imprison someone in an animal form. Those were relatively benign as far as reasons to be qualified as dark went. The only one suffering would be herself.
"That's the thing, you can't cast it on yourself." He met her gaze with a downright serious stare. "Think about it. Say you managed to cast it on yourself. You're an animal. What next?"
"I cast the countercurse. Without a wand, probably without vocal cords, and maybe without magic." She could see how that would theoretically be a problem.
"Definitely without magic, so that wouldn't work." He shook his head. "This isn't internal magic like being an Animagus, so you can't cast it when you're not yourself. Since the curse needs the same caster to undo it… If you did turn yourself, you'd need to take the bodycount method to turn back, or never turn back at all. I can cast it on you."
She felt a pulse of determination from her power. Her power, which was actually the 'individual' casting her spells, if one spoke of where the magic originated. She had retained her power even when turned into a monster by Lab Rat during the final battle. She wasn't convinced she would lose her magic as an animal, so long as she kept her mind. If she kept her magic and mastered wandlessly casting the countercurse…
"I think that might not apply to me," she mused. "We'll test it in stages, so I don't get stuck and require virgins."
"Good, because I certainly don't qualify," Sirius said with a grin. "Could you sacrifice yourself?"
"Thirteen-year-old son," she reminded him.
"I was outside the room when Lily gave birth," he countered. "Unless the Muggles have some mind-bogglingly weird adoption rituals, I know he didn't come out of you, and James certainly didn't put him in you."
"Still not a virgin." She flicked her wand and mouthed 'aguamenti', spraying him with a jet of cold water. "Get your mind out of the gutter."
"I am so tempted to keep you in my pocket and introduce you as my trouser snake," Sirius mused.
Taylor wanted to tell him exactly what would happen if he did that, but it would have to wait. She was currently busy slithering around the dusty floor of Number Twelve Grimmauld Place, in the form of a black two-foot-long common Adder.
The choice of a snake was a simple one; a quirk of the curse ensured that she kept the same number of limbs, meaning she was an easily recognizable oddity as a cat, completely useless as an owl, and mostly useless as a toad. All three of the common Hogwarts pets ruled out, Sirius suggested an unofficial pet often kept by Slytherins, with no limbs to be conspicuously missing.
The snake form was alien, but it had just enough in the way of instincts that it wasn't unbearably so. She could slither quickly enough to startle Sirius, her bite was venomous, and she could smell with her tongue.
"How's the magic doing?" he asked, clearly skeptical. "I think I should be worried about all the spiders you keep in here now that you're not able to control them."
Taylor hissed at him. Her power radiated smug, and once again it and she were in complete agreement. Sirius made it so satisfying to prove him wrong; she was pretty sure he did it on purpose to spur her on.
A quartet of flies airbombed him, each one carrying a small spider to prove it wasn't a coincidence. "Ew! Okay!" He swatted them off. "That's one Merlin-forsaken weird blood curse you've got going on. Don't know how you knew it would work like this…"
It worked because her magic was not hers, and thus no matter what form she took, so long as her power could connect to her, magic was available by proxy. By the same reasoning, she didn't think she needed to worry about whether she would be able to master the countercurse wordlessly and wandlessly. Her power already did spells without either. They were just more stressful for her without her special wand.
That said, 'as easy as normal' implied a few weeks of concentrated agony to practice the spell to exhaustion, and probably more to do it wordlessly and wandlessly, so she wasn't ready to infiltrate Hogwarts just yet.
Soon, though. She had a goal to work towards.
She also, at the current moment, had a Sirius to toy with, and a need to get accustomed to a snake body.
"Hey," he said, raising his wand defensively… "Don't get any funny ideas." Either he was more perceptive than he let on, or he knew he'd been asking for retaliation.
She arranged her insects in the air in front of him, forming an easily recognizable pair of words.
'Trouser Snake?'
He ran.
Winter break was fast approaching, and the letters from Taylor forwarded through the Grangers had slowed. Not stopped; Taylor knew better than to do that. But Harry got the impression she was keeping something from him, and choosing to write less often rather than outright lying about whatever it was.
He hoped the secret she was keeping was a pleasant surprise of some sort. He suspected it was some kind of bad news. After two and a half years worrying about her, it was harder than he had expected to stop worrying.
The Dementors around the castle weren't helping matters. There was some ruckus about a Quidditch game getting interrupted by a veritable flood of the things. Hufflepuff gossip had their numbers somewhere between three and a thousand. Neville, the only one of Harry's friends who had bothered attending, said there were at least a hundred. Nobody was hurt, but the Dementor patrol routes had changed, and they were closer to the castle, now. Because that made sense.
Dumbledore made an announcement in the Great Hall about not going out and holding fast until the Ministry deemed fit to remove the Dementors. There was talk of Sirius Black being sighted in France, though his mum's next letter had said there was no truth to such rumors.
Most of the other students were hunkering down, riding out the last few damp, gloomy weeks between them and a cheerful vacation. Harry would be among them…
But he didn't know whether he would be leaving the castle over the break. If his mum came through and tricked Dumbledore somehow he might be able to go, but she had yet to mention any solid plans.
He knew he was getting his hopes up. He also didn't care. At worst, he would have exactly as melancholy a Christmas as he had in the previous two years, with the added comfort that at least he knew his mum was alive and well. There was no harm in hoping.
"It would be no bother," Hermione insisted one evening as they walked the halls of Hogwarts, not going anywhere in particular. Nobody was allowed outside without adult supervision, so a lot of the students had taken to roaming the castle when the need to go somewhere struck. "My parents would love to have you, and you know who else could be there."
"Dumbledore never gives me a choice," Harry objected, once again. "I'll ask him, but he'll say no. Especially with Black still a fugitive."
"I really do think that's unfair, you know," Hermione remarked. "A double standard. You're not Harry Potter, why would Black care? I'm not Harry Potter either, but I get to go home."
"If the resemblance is enough to get every other adult who meets me to make the mistake, Black will probably mistake me for him too." Theoretically. If Black really was the crazy murderer people thought he was. Harry was still on the fence about that, but he thought his mum could take care of herself either way. Especially with magic.
"There are charms to make you look different," Hermione insisted. They passed two Slytherins headed for the library. "We could give you brown hair, make it curly, and claim you were my cousin. Black wouldn't look twice, and you could come stay with us."
"I'll tell Dumbledore you offered." And he would get shut down, but he appreciated the thought.
A student in Ravenclaw robes approached them. Luna Lovegood, the girl Hermione said was always flustering the other Ravenclaws with nonsensical comments. She had that airy, unconcerned look on her face that Harry remembered from the last time he had spoken to her. He supposed it might be her default expression, but he stopped to speak with her anyway.
"Bert," Luna greeted him. "I thought I might find you here. I am staying for break, don't you know? My father is in the middle of remodeling our home and he wrote saying the heating charms are all infested with Nargles."
"I'm sorry, that sounds… annoying?" Harry guessed, not knowing what Nargles were or how they infested charms in the first place.
"He says they almost cooked him alive last week," Luna remarked. "I thought, since I would be staying here, that we should be friends."
Hermione let out a little snort, which Harry chose to interpret as amusement rather than annoyance.
"Okay?" he said.
"So I want to give you a Christmas present," Luna continued. "I will give it now." She held her left arm out.
Harry jerked back as a black snake head the size of his fist poked out from Luna's sleeve. Piercingly dark eyes stood out on a shiny scaled face, and a red tongue flicked in his direction.
"I hope you don't take this the wrong way," the snake said in perfect english, her voice instantly recognizable. "Luna, any time now would be good…"
Harry's jaw dropped.
"Her name is Hissy," Luna said blithely. "A friend mailed her to me. You do not have a familiar yet, do you?"
"Luna, that's a snake," Hermione spluttered. "You– those aren't even allowed!"
Harry's head whipped around so fast he cricked his neck. "Hermione, is that the thing you care about right now?" he demanded. He wanted to know why the snake was talking with his mum's voice!
"I don't care about the rules when they're stupid, but you'll just have her confiscated if anyone sees her," Hermione objected. "Besides, do you even like snakes?"
"I think he will like me," the snake hiss-laughed.
"I like this one!" Harry said incredulously. "Luna, thank you so much!" He reached out to the snake, and it – was it his mum, or was she just speaking through it somehow? – slithered out of Luna's sleeve to coil around his arm.
"That worked out better than I thought it would," the snake hissed. "Now, how do I let you know I am not just a snake?"
Harry peered down at his mother. "You just did," he told her.
"Oh!" Luna smiled brightly. "You can talk to her! I didn't know that."
"Interesting…" his mother – the snake version of her – said thoughtfully.
Hermione's mouth worked soundlessly.
Harry was beginning to think he was missing something rather important.
Taylor had decided that Luna Lovegood was not a secret mastermind hiding behind feigned oddities. Her mystery creatures and unusual remarks were not code for anything. She was not a seer, or if she was one it was completely unconnected to the mannerisms that set her apart from her peers.
No, Luna was none of those things. She was just a flighty, scatterbrained twelve-year-old girl with a penchant for whimsy, and an innocent desire to be helpful. Taylor had taken advantage of that several times in the last few months, to great success each time. Luna had provided her with robes and advice, and played the messenger twice, the second time obligingly gifting Harry with a 'pet snake' to provide Taylor with a solid alibi. Not once had Luna asked for anything in return.
Taylor didn't know yet how she was going to pay the odd little girl back, but she fully intended to do her a few good turns in recompense for her help. Giving her an excuse to hang around with Harry and his friends, which any child would be lucky to have in Taylor's entirely unbiased opinion, was not nearly enough to balance the scales. She would have to come up with something else.
In the meantime, she was a snake in Hogwarts. An unsanctioned 'pet', which was a cover story that provided her with exactly as much leeway as Pettigrew had enjoyed, being a rat. Not a single professor knew what she was, and of the students only Harry's friends and Luna knew who she really was. Given Dumbledore was in the castle, it was vital they keep it that way.
"What about Ron?" had been Harry's question to Ginny, after he had gathered his friends and Luna at what was apparently their usual minorly warded table in the library. An extra chair had been pulled up for Luna, and Taylor was on the table itself, the subject of many surprised looks. "I know you can hear her, Ginny, and apparently I can too. We should make sure we know who else could overhear."
"Why's that involve Ron?" Neville asked. "He's not the heir of Slytherin after all."
"I heard through the Hufflepuff grapevine that he claimed he spoke to the snake during the dueling club fiasco," Harry explained.
"He was trying to protect me," Ginny sighed. "He can't actually speak to snakes, but he saw me do it and jumped on the chance to say it was him so nobody suspected me. That's why he stayed away from me and caused so much ruckus after the dueling club, he told me he was doing his best to make sure everybody thought it was him or no Weasley at all. I can only speak it now because of… you know. Ron can't. Weasleys aren't parselmouths."
"Harry must have inherited the talent," Neville offered. "Didn't you say your mum was…" He trailed off, looking down at Taylor. She was used to seeing things from a very low vantage point, thanks to her bugs, but it still unnerved her slightly to know her actual body was so small and low to the ground. "Sorry, miss Hebert."
"Hissy," Luna interjected.
"Hissy when I am a snake," Taylor agreed, though only Harry and Ginny understood her. The Map was still in play in the castle, in the hands of yet more Weasleys if Pettigrew's terrified confessions were to be believed, and Sirius had told her that the only way to avoid her real name showing up was to adopt the name of an alter-ego so thoroughly that the identification magic made a distinction between her snake and human selves, due to how it had been created. Thus, the 'Animagus name' tradition Sirius and his friends had come up with, that she was now continuing with the uninspired name of 'Hissy'.
"If there is a bloodline curse, then there is a bloodline to be cursed," Hermione interjected, apparently following Neville's aborted line of reasoning. "A bloodline that can speak Parseltongue. That would explain you, Harry."
It would, if Harry was actually descended from her, and if she was actually magical or stood any chance of having magical ancestors, neither of which was the case. But it was good enough to satisfy the curiosity of a child who was certain she had figured something out, so Taylor wasn't worried for her secrets.
Harry might have been worried for his secrets, if he had any he was keeping from her, but she wasn't inclined to hover over him every second of every day. That was a quick way to get him to resent her, and impractical besides. She couldn't handle being a snake for more than a few days at a time. Also, she still had a job to do on the weekdays.
Instead of being a full-time pet like Pettigrew, she instead chose to be a weekend visitor that Harry would claim, if asked, spent most of her time slithering around the castle doing the things snakes liked to do and only occasionally returned to him for attention. In reality she snuck into the castle by the tunnels every Friday night and left every Sunday night by the same method. It was a good compromise, giving her enough time to reconnect with him while not turning her into a creepy stalker or voyeur of teenage drama out of pure boredom.
Following the same line of reasoning that kept her from crossing lines best left untouched, she didn't sleep in his bed. Or his dorm, at that. Her first action upon parting with Harry that first night had been to slither around to get her bearings and look for a suitable snake-sized hideout to spend the nights in. She quickly settled on a narrow ledge up near the ceiling of the Hogwarts' kitchens.
As it turned out, the warm, good-smelling space also doubled as an observation post from which she could watch her newest enemies.
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