Year Three, Chapter Fourteen
Holly's return to Hogwarts was a nervous one. She felt emboldened by her new name, but she knew some people would try to twist it against her. She knew how to fight Dementors now, as was learning all kinds of new magic both in and outside of class. Sirius Black was still after her, and she knew that Voldemort was still out there. He might just be haunting an Albanian forest for now, but Holly knew that he would not be content to live out whatever life his dark magic had granted him.
"Thank you for the books, Holly!" Hermione said, hugging her as she entered their compartment on the Hogwart's express. Holly hugged her back, smiling. Neville Longbottom joined Holly, Hermione, and Ginny in the compartment, and they all had a pleasant time talking about their holidays.
"Oh look, Draco... it's Harry Potter and his freakshow," Pansy Parkinson said as she and Draco walked past Holly's compartment.
"Now now Pansy, Harry has changed his name - he must be truly afraid of Black to try something like that," Draco said.
Holly felt rage well up within her, and she wasn't alone. Ron got to his feet, as did Ginny.
"Get out of here, Malfoy. Or this time I'm not giving your wand back," Holly said. She was standing now, her own wand in her hand.
"You're brave enough on the train, Potter, but given how you've spent the year cowering from Black... well, if it was me I'd want my revenge," Malfoy said, and Holly felt a little nonplussed. Her revenge for what?
"Did you forget the last two years, Malfoy, or are you just inbred enough to want me to hex you?" Holly asked.
"Where are your goons, Malfoy? Busy beating up a first-year for some sweets?" Ginny asked.
"Do... do you not know Potter?" Draco said, sounding genuinely astonished. Holly looked at him, confused.
"He really doesn't," Pansy said, and the two of them started laughing uncontrollably. Holly slammed the door shut, thoroughly confused. What could entice her to actually go after Sirius Black - what, she wondered, had Black done to her that would make her seek out an extremely dangerous dark wizard?
"He was probably just messing with you, mate," Ron said.
"Malfoy would like nothing better than for Black to get you, Holly," Hermione said, worried.
They tossed around a few theories, but none of them made much sense. Soon enough Malfoy's bizarre taunt was forgotten, and everyone turned their minds towards exploding snaps and Bertie Bot's Every Flavour Beans.
That night, Holly slipped out of the Gryffindor common room under her invisibility cloak and headed towards one of the collapsed secret passages Fred and Geroge had shown her on the Maurder's Map. As she walked, she noticed something odd about the map - up in the boy's dorms, Holly could see a second tiny dot in Ron's bed, labelled 'Scabbers'. None of the other pets, save Mrs Norris, showed up on the map. Holly wondered if the twins had added him in as a joke, or something. Holly knew they were pretty good at runework and enchanting.
She kept the map out and made sure to take a detour around Snape. After fifteen careful minutes, she tapped her wand in the correct order on the seven panels, then slipped into the secret passage. Much further down there had been a cave-in, but behind the first bend was stable enough for Holly's purposes.
She first cast an anti-fume spell, conjuring an enchanted wind to softly blow potions fumes away. She'd have to set up some runes in the future - her spell would only last a few hours - but it was good enough for now. She set up her spare cauldron, the potions supplies she'd bought in Hogsmeade, and got to work. The first thing she needed to brew for the Animagus ritual was a human-safe sticking solution, to hold a mandrake leaf inside her mouth for a month.
That was a simple enough potion, and Holly quickly set it to brewing and started to read the book on Basilisk's she'd borrowed from the library. It was a fascinating read, but she didn't see what bill could have been referring to. She did see that the first wizard to have hatched a Basilisk - Herpo the Foul - was said to have 'invented many other magicks of the evilest nature'.
As she stirred her sticking solution, Holly noticed something odd. Herpo the Foul was born in 576 and died in 462, which wasn't an unusual lifespan for a wizard, but the book had a typo in it - not unknown for wizarding books - and said he'd been born in BC but died in AD. That really was odd, Holly thought. Maybe she should ask Hermione to help her look him up.
Then her sticking solution was ready, and Holly dipped her Mandrake leaf in it. She carefully dipped all of it save the stem, and then placed it in her mouth - on the inside her left cheek. The sticking sensation was odd, and Holly ran her tongue over the leaf. That was perfectly safe - the solution only stuck once - but it was a very strange sensation.
"Say, Hermione, do you know anything about Herpo the Foul?" Holly asked her friend the next morning.
"Oh, I came across him last year. He bred the first Basilisk and invented some dark curse called Fiendfyre. Why, Holly?" Hermione said.
"You know Ron's brother Bill, the curse breaker? He wanted to hear what had really happened in the Chamber, and he said something odd about Basilisk venom - that being coated in it might have let Gryffindor's sword destroy something he wouldn't talk about. I looked up Basilisk's to see if someone else had used the same example, and the book had this really weird error - I think they put an AD on Herpo's date of death instead of a BC," Holly explained.
"That's... that's odd. It wasn't Serpents Most Foul, was it?" Hermione asked.
"No, it was The King of All Snakes. Why?" Holly said.
"Because I remember the same error, and if it's been repeated twice..."
"What, Hermione?" Holly asked.
"If it's been repeated twice, it might not be an error," Hermione said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"That's nearly a thousand years - even wizards don't live that long," Holly said.
"Some wizards do," Hermione said, quietly, and Holly felt very stupid. Nicholas and Perennelle Flamel had done just that, and Holly had touched the Philosopher's Stone they used to do so.
"But he can't have had a Philospher's stone - Flamel invented them, and on one else has been known to make one since," Holly said.
"We need to do more research," Hermione said, and Holly agreed. They agreed to meet in the library after class and try and find out what the truth was about Herpo the Foul.
"Patil, Parvati?" Snape called out as he took the roll in potions class that morning.
"Here," Parvati responded, looking at Holly nervously.
"Potter, H- Holly?" Snape said, sounding like he was choking the words out. He still refused to look at her.
"Here," she said, and Holly wondered what was going on with the surly Potions Master. This was getting absurd - Snape's reaction to Holly's transition was at first sneering bigotry, as many of the Slytherins, but what had caused him to act like this, Holly wondered. Had Dumbledore talked to him, and this was his compromise?
After classes, Holly met Hermione at the library and they tried to research Herpo the Foul further. Every book they could find printed the same date of death, 462AD, though a few didn't include a date at all. Accounts of his death were fairly consistent, with his own curse being turned on him and burning to death along the with Statue of Zeus in Constantinople.
"What magic could allow him to live so long?" Holly said, feeling like that was a crucial element to the Dark Wizard's tale that had clearly been left out. Even biographies of the man refused to discuss it, with the only hints being descriptions of his long life as having been granted by 'the darkest of magic'.
"Something too dark for the Restricted Section, which worries me... Holly, I don't think we'll find an answer here. But the Diary... you said Riddle seemed to think he could use it to come back?" Hermione said.
"Yeah he... oh," Holly said. Had the Diary been more than a memory preserved in ink and paper - or was there some sort of dark magic that would allow such a being to live for a thousand years? Herpo the Foul had been a constant presence in the Mediterranean for nearly a millennium, with even Emperors paying him tribute.
From what they'd been able to find, Herpo the Foul had only been killed after his enemies tricked him into a powerful magical trap and then unleashed his own cursed flames against him. Fiendfyre was apparently a very dark curse that summoned beasts made of cursed fire that devoured all they touched, multiplying as they did so. Most books regarded them as uncontrollable, though some books noted that throughout history, a few powerful dark wizards seemed to have some measure of control over it - Herpo, Salazar Slytherin, and Voldemort were all reputed to have controlled it.
Given that Herpo had been burned to death by Fiendfyre he summoned, Holly doubted that the control was that absolute.
They gave up searching in the Library, and Holly remembered her promise to teach Hermione the Patronus charm after the Christmas break. They'd met back up with Ron and Ginny at that point.
"Hermione, did you want to get started on the Patronus charm?" Holly asked as they all sat at dinner.
"Oh, yes please Holly - if you have the time," Hermione said.
"I wouldn't mind having a crack at it myself, mate," Ron said.
"Oh yeah, I wanna try too," Ginny said.
"I guess that's fine - it is a really difficult spell, and you just might not be old enough, Ginny," Holly warned, but the four of them found an unused classroom all the same. They cleared a space in the centre, and then Holly went to the front. She felt silly, like she was wearing clothes far too big for her, but she explained the basic theory of the Patronus charm, the wand motions, and the incantation.
They were only able to practice for about half an hour, and only Hermione had been able to get a puff of silvery mist from her wand, but it was a good start. They returned to the common room in good spirit, and the girls sat around the fire chatting about nothing in particular as Ron went up to put his books away.
He came down holding a bedsheet, stained with a streak of fresh blood, and his face white with rage.
"LOOK AT WHAT THAT MENACE DID TO SCABBERS," Ron shouted, tears welling in his eyes. He shook the bedsheet in Hermione's face, and Holly felt an awful paralysis. She hated taking sides between her two best friends, and Holly knew this would be a serious row.
"Ron, Crook-" Hermione began, but Ron cut her off.
"I FOUND THIS ON THE FLOOR... AN ORANGE CAT HAIR!" he shouted, showing Hermione the price of cat hair. It did look like it could have been Crookshank's, but...
"THAT COULD HAVE BEEN-"
"YOUR CAT KILLED HIM-"
Holly had an idea. Nobody was looking at her - all eyes were on Ron and Hermione - so she quickly got out the Map. Shielding it from prying eyes with her body, she scanned it desperately hoping it would show her what she wanted. He wasn't anywhere in the tower or the rest of the castle, and just as Holly felt despair grip her she glanced at the map of the grounds and saw the tiny dot she was looking for. Scabbers was alive and near Hagrid's hut.
"Mischief managed," Holly whispered as she put the Map away and stood up. "Come with me, you two," Holly said, and as they both ignored her she started to bodily drag them.
"Geroff!" Ron said, and Hermione turned to look at Holly sharply.
"You two need to come with me, because I need to show you something in private... and you too, Ginny," Holly said. The four of them followed Holly up to Ron's dormitory room, which was thankfully empty.
"What did you need to show us?" Ginny asked.
"This. I solemnly swear I'm up to no good," Holly said, touching her wand to the map. Ron and Hermione, who had been shouting at each other the whole way up, fell silent.
"What - what is that?" Hermione asked.
"It's a map of the castle - Fred and George gave it to me at Christmas. They pinched it from Filtch years ago, but that's not important right now. What's important is this," Holly said, and showed her friends the little dot that said "Scabbers".
"He's alive!" Ron said, his voice hoarse.
"Wait, who's that other dot near him? I can't make it out - and it's gone. Does Crookshanks show up, Holly?" Ginny asked, and Holly shook her head.
"That's... odd," Hermione said, not looking at Ron.
"Don't you try and make Scabbers into -" Ron began, but Hermione looked at him.
"I'm - I'm sorry, Ron. I don't want Crookshanks to hurt Scabbers, but he's a cat. Cats chase rats!" Hermione said.
"Yeah, well," Ron said, but Ginny cut him off.
"Well what? Come on, Ron. Everyone else with a rat keeps them in a cage when they're not there. There are cats running all over this tower - even Percy kept Scabbers in a cage at school," Ginny said.
"I was going to say we should go get Scabbers," Ron said, defensively. Holly was sure that wasn't what he had planned to say, but she was happy to pretend otherwise.
"We can't go outside after dark - especially not Holly," Hermione said.
"Can I borrow your cloak and the Map, mate?" Ron asked, and Holly nodded. They all went downstairs, though Ron was under the cloak and slipped out of the portrait hole without being noticed.
Holly still wanted to know why Scabbers alone of all the student's pets turned up on the Map. Something about it felt wrong to her. Still, Ron returned after about half an hour with Scabbers in tow and without an issue. He and Hermione were still a little touchy with one another, but Holly thought she'd defused the situation admirably.
Holly woke to distant screams and the sound of spellfire.
