"Are you sure you haven't seen anything? Any other night?" Betty tried again, more persistent this time. "Near Professor Nightshade's office. Or close by. Or heard anything at all?"
Nearly Headless Nick inclined his head, as if he was considering the matter with great care, his expression gently apologetic.
"I'm sorry, young Miss Black," he apologised. "I was indeed passing through that corridor—but I cannot say I heard anything in the way you mean."
He paused, as if he was searching for the right phrasing. "It was... rather difficult to be certain of anything, for a moment."
Betty frowned. "What do you mean?"
Nick's translucent hand lifted slightly, hovering uncertainly between them.
"Voices carry very oddly through these halls at night, as you may imagine. We ghosts grow quite accustomed to such things. But this—" He hesitated. "—this one was not as it ought to be. It did not seem to come from any one direction at all. Rather... everywhere at once, I would think."
Betty's fingers tightened around her sleeve. "From more than one person?"
"I couldn't say," he admitted. "At times it seemed singular—at others... not. As if several voices spoke together—yet not quite together, but overlapping, yes. And rather deep they were, indeed. Or perhaps... the same deep voice repeating itself before it had quite finished. Ah, yes, indeed, the voices did sound... identical. And there was..." He faltered slightly. "A great deal of noise besides. Shouting, I think. Perhaps even screaming."
A short silence settled between them.
Betty glanced at the stone floor, then back up at him. "And the chaos?" she pressed. "What did you mean by that?"
Nick's expression shifted, just enough to register unease.
"Well," he said slowly, "I have witnessed a great many disturbances within this castle over the centuries. Duels, accidents, and the occasional poltergeist-related... episodes." A faint, strained smile flickered across his face. "However, this did feel... slightly different."
"Different how?"
"For a brief instant," he said, lowering his voice, "I couldn't tell where I was. The corridor seemed... displaced. As if something had unsettled it. Even after it quieted, I couldn't be certain it had truly ceased. It did not leave the corridor in the usual way. If it ever left at all."
Betty looked at him thoughtfully. "Traces of magic?"
"I would think so, yes," he nodded. "Some magical creatures perhaps? Something... not entirely unfamiliar—and yet so unfamiliar I could readily name. When one has been dead as long as I have—four hundred and ninety-eight years... and some months besides—one does, I fear, encounter a great many odd occurrences. Not all of them remain... clearly remembered."
His gaze drifted slightly, as if he were lost in an old memory.
Betty pressed her lips together, holding back an impatient sigh.
"Even if it was only a few months ago?" she interjected.
"Hmmm," he continued, nodding, "there was something in this that I do not recall having heard before. Not in that part of the castle. Not in that manner." His brow furrowed faintly. "That... overlapping of sound, as it were. Something I have not encountered often I have to admit."
"And you said..." she recalled his earlier words, "it wasn't the first time."
Nick stilled. For a moment, he didn't answer. Then he gave her a small, measured nod.
"I have... heard something not entirely unlike it before," he said.
"When?" Betty asked immediately.
"Time does not always pass for us as it does for you," he replied. "Moments blur. Years do as well." He inclined his head slightly. "Though I confess... I remember this instance rather more distinctly."
Betty's gaze sharpened. "Why?"
"It happened," Nick said slowly, "on the occasion of my... four hundred and ninety-eighth deathday."
A brief pause followed.
"And that was?" Betty pressed.
"On the night of Halloween."
Betty recalls how the professor had already seemed restless and quick to lose his temper during the lesson that day. But it still didn't add up.
"But," she paused to think, "the professor was clearly already distressed before that. Are you sure that was exactly when it happened?"
"I'm absolutely certain, my dear child," Nick insisted. "It happened just as the Bloody Baron was expressing his delight that Peeves hadn't turned up this time, oh yes. You know Peeves, after all."
"So did anyone else hear it as well?" she asked.
"Possibly," he said. "We do not always remark upon such things."
"But Professor Nightshade disappeared," Betty insisted, her voice tightening slightly. "No one finds that odd?"
Nick regarded her for a moment, his expression gentle, though not entirely reassuring.
"My dear," he said carefully, "even that is not without precedent. I believe you would find that such... departures are not entirely unheard of over the years. And this one in particular—"
"That position is said to be cursed," Betty interrupted suddenly, when she realised what he was going to say.
Nick startled slightly at the interruption, his head giving a small, reflexive jerk.
"Sorry," she added quickly.
"Eh—yes," he said, recovering himself. "That is... the general understanding, I believe. If you insist, I can, of course, make discreet inquiries among the other ghosts."
"That'd be wonderful," Betty said, a smile appearing on her face. "Thank you, Sir Nicholas."
He inclined his head again. "At your service, young Miss Black."
And with that, he floated backwards—and vanished soundlessly through the stone wall.
Betty remained where she was, staring at the place where he had vanished through the wall, her thoughts racing as she tried to pin down what she had just heard: voices without source, overlapping as if more than one were speaking but not to each other; space without direction, something even a ghost couldn't properly place; and then, cutting through it all, screams—Nightshade's screams, she was almost certain, though she couldn't have said why.
Nearly Headless Nick had said it began on Halloween, and that was months ago, but Nightshade had been falling apart long before that—she had seen it herself: the red eyes, the trembling hands, the way he flinched at every sound as if expecting something to leap out of the darkness at any moment.
So Halloween was not the start, she realised; it was something else, something that made it worse, or perhaps—and this thought made her stomach tighten—perhaps it was simply the first time someone else had heard what had already been there all along, lurking beneath the surface where only Nightshade could feel it.
Her jaw tightened.
She was now certain that she hadn't imagined it, yet the whole thing seemed even stranger than she had initially thought.
Over the course of the following week, the thought refused to leave her. It lingered in her mind—returning at the most inconvenient moments—when she tried to sleep, when she attempted to do her homework, when she was in class, or when even in the brief pauses during conversations. The more she tried to make sense of it, the less coherent it became.
Voices coming from more sources. One, and yet many. Overlapping, but not speaking to each other. Some magical creature—familiar yet unfamiliar... So maybe it wasn't even a human being?
The feeling that it was something non-human grew increasingly. Something magical, powerful enough to cloud Nearly Headless Nick's perception.
Betty thought back to the night when she herself had heard that voice. It was deep, just as Nick had perceived it as well. But it had definitely been only one voice, one that didn't react to Nightshade's screams. So perhaps it was something mimicking?
Besides, the corridor hadn't felt unreal, even though Betty had sensed something that seemed familiar to her; she just couldn't put her finger on where she knew it from.
Perhaps... at that time there was only one being, whatever it might have been, and sometimes it had been more than one?
A shiver ran down her spine at the thought of hearing that same voice and those unsettling words spoken in unison, at times overlapping.
A murderer roams the corridors unpunished.
Betty found herself listening more closely whenever she passed that corridor, as if the voice might be heard again. It was never the case.
On Monday, her patience was put to the test. In the dim light of the dungeon, wrapped in the billowing mist of the Wiggenweld Potion, Betty had a hard time concentrating on following the recipe correctly, and every so often she glanced up through the steam towards the blackboard where Professor Snape had written the instructions. The liquid in her cauldron had only just begun to shift from purple to red after stirring it five times, and she carefully measured the exact amount of Flobberworm Mucus before adding it.
She didn't dare to make a mistake.
Ever since the new year—and since her mother had promised to speak to Professor Snape—lessons had not improved. If anything, they had become worse.
Professor Snape hadn't mentioned it himself, but Betty noticed the difference in the way he tormented the Gryffindors at every opportunity—Holly and Cormac in particular, were the targets of his harassment. By the end of the lessons, the Gryffindors had usually lost more points than the Slytherins had gained—and that had to mean something.
And even Betty, whom he had previously mostly ignored, seemed to be under his scrutiny as well, as if he were waiting for her to make a mistake—no matter how small. And she had no intention of giving him any.
It had't taken long for Betty to realise, involving her mother had been a mistake.
She was just about to turn up the heat beneath her cauldron when she hesitated, her wand hovering over the small flame as her gaze dropped to the table. Only four lionfish bones were gone, and when she looked back up at the blackboard, the instruction was still clear: add five.
A wave of heat rose through her chest as she realised she had nearly moved on too soon, and she swallowed before carefully adding the final spine, keeping her eyes fixed on the potion's deepening colour until only then she turned up the heat.
Relieved, Betty leaned slightly over her cauldron, brushing a strand of hair from her face as she exhaled slowly and watched the liquid begin to shift, just starting to take on the desired yellow hue and bubbling evenly, when deliberate footsteps crossed the stone floor and stopped directly in front of her.
"Black," came a soft, cold voice from above her.
Betty froze, staring into her cauldron for just a fraction longer, its content's steam now carrying a faintly sour, metallic smell, before she slowly raised her gaze, and frowned.
Professor Snape stood in front of her, holding a parchment between his thumb and forefinger, as if it were something contaminated, and regarding her with a cold, assessing expression.
"Would you care to explain," he said softly, "what this is supposed to be?"
"A roll of parchment, sir," Betty replied, slightly irritated.
A few students behind her giggled.
The professor's head snapped up sharply.
"Silence!"
The word cut through the dungeon like a whip, and the laughter died at once.
He turned back to Betty, his eyes narrowing to slits, and let the parchment fall onto her table.
"Read."
Betty took it, unrolled it, and let her eyes move over the neatly written lines. At first, she didn't register the handwriting; only when her gaze reached the top, where her name stood in precise strokes, did she realise what she was looking at.
Her essay. Written by the enchanted quill.
She skimmed it, faster now, and her stomach dropped. She hadn't read it before handing it in. That mistake made itself painfully clear with every line.
"Have you swallowed a copy of Magical Draughts and Potions," he asked softly, "or how, exactly, do you explain this... piece of work?"
Her heart skipped a beat. She stared at the parchment as her eyes moved over the lines—references to diagrams, instructions, even see table reference and figure 54B. The quill hadn't merely written an essay; it had copied the sentences without understanding its meaning. How on earth could she have allowed herself to be so lenient—and with Professor Snape of all people?
Her hands began to sweat.
"Look at me," he said quietly.
Slowly, Betty lifted her gaze to meet his.
His eyes seemed to bore into hers with a hard, searching intensity—exactly the kind he reserved for students who had done something reckless, careless, or offensively incompetent. She felt it then—the faint, familiar pressure at the edge of her mind, subtle but unmistakable, as if he was searching for a way in, testing for weakness, for motive, for explanation. Most broke under it quickly; it was easier that way. It was too uncomfortable to endure for long.
But Betty didn't dare to look away; instinctively, her barriers closed, unyielding and firm. She held his gaze, knowing he would find nothing there—and knowing, just as certainly, that looking away would give him reason enough; she didn't even dare to blink, even as her chest tightened and the silence stretched, she forced herself to remain still, even as the room around her beginning to blur.
Snape's expression didn't change—but something his eyes sharpened.
"Empty your bag," he demanded.
Betty did as demand, emptying her bag onto her table; ink pots, her quill, scrambled parchments, and books falling onto the table.
Professor Snape narrowed his eyes further, fixed onto the quill lying in the mess of her belongings. He flicked his wand towards it.
"Revelio."
The quill suddenly came to live, jumped into the air, and hoovered patiently above her parchment.
His lips curled faintly.
"I see," he said softly, "a self-writing quill."
His gaze flicked to the parchment again, then back to her.
"I was unaware Zonko's had expanded into educational assistance," he continued, his voice even. "Although I can imagine they're allowing themselves a joke at the expense of their customers, testing the limits of their intelligence."
Betty's breathing shallowed, but she didn't make a move, didn't dare to shift her weight or lower her gaze or give any sign that the weight of the class pressing against her back—and the giggles coming from the back left corner, where the Slytherin girls sat like spectators at a particularly entertaining spectacle—was affecting her at all.
Professor Snape's eyes lingered on her a moment longer, as if he were searching for something beneath her composed surface.
"Tell me, Black," he continued, voice smooth and cutting, "did you purchase this particular specimen yourself, or did you simply fall victim to one of their more... creative jokes?"
More laughter, and louder this time—Celeste Flint and her friends didn't bother to stifle their giggles; Betty could almost feel their stares on her back. This time the professor didn't shut it down.
But she felt something else too. She glanced to her left, just for a second.
Katie stared at her. Her face was pale, her lips pressed tightly together, her hands hovering motionless over her cauldron. She wasn't laughing.
None of the Gryffindors were. Somehow that was worse. Betty looked away.
"Ten points from Gryffindor for this... embarrassment," Snape announced, "and detention."
He paused, letting the silence stretch.
"Some students," he continued, his voice smooth as glass, "prefer to hide behind tools. Or send others to do their begging for them."
Betty's stomach dropped, and she understood immediately that he was no longer talking about the quill—he was talking about her mother. She hadn't meant it as begging; she had simply asked for help, had wanted him to stop being cruel to Holly, to Cormac, to everyone else. But he saw it differently, and there was no point in explaining.
Betty's jaw tightened, and she clenched her hands beneath the table, but still, she didn't look away. Under no circumstances would she give him that satisfaction.
Never again, she promised herself. I'm never involving mum again.
The rest of the lesson passed in a blur. Betty stared into her cauldron, watching the potion simmer, but her mind was elsewhere, still caught on Katie's gaze at the back of her neck and the echo of Snape's voice.
When the bell finally rang and everyone began gathering their things, the other Gryffindors shot her sympathetic looks as they made their way out—Holly, even Fay and Mira, and Cormac, who opened his mouth as if to say something, then thought better of it and closed it again.
Katie didn't look at her at all.
Betty packed her things at her usual pace, so that she would be, as always, the last to leave the dungeon. Not only to avoid attracting the attention of her classmates, but also to avoid appearing weak or giving the impression that she was rushing to escape, though she moved quickly enough to ensure she didn't linger a moment longer than necessary.
Just as she rounded the last table and reached for the door, his voice stopped her.
"Black."
She paused, then turned.
"Yes, sir?"
"Friday at eight. Don't be late."
Betty nodded once and slipped through the door without looking back.
When Friday arrived, she paced in front of his office eight minutes early, not daring to give him another reason to scold her, another excuse to humiliate her. The corridor was empty and cold, the torches casting long shadows that flickered across the stone floor; she pulled her cloak tighter around herself. She stopped at the door, checked her watch—two minutes to eight—and continued pacing back and forth.
Thirty seconds to eight, she stopped again.
Standing there waiting, she realised that she had never stood in front of this door—not like this, not on this side. When she used to have lessons with him, she would step out of the green flames and onto the hearth rug in his office, brushing ash from her robes before he even looked up. There had been no knocking then. No waiting. No uncertainty about what waited on the other side.
Now, she didn't know what to expect, and the not-knowing made her restless.
As the clock struck eight precisely, she lifted her hand and knocked. Seconds passed—just enough for her to wonder if she had knocked loud enough. Just as she considered knocking again, his voice came from behind the wood.
"Enter."
She opened the door, slipped through, and closed it behind her.
The office was exactly as she remembered it: tall shelves lined the walls, crammed with leather-bound volumes and glass jars containing things she had learned not to look at too closely. In the corner, half hidden in the dimly lit room, was another door that she had always assumed led to his private chambers—she had never seen it open.
And yet, something felt different. Not the room itself, but the air in it, or perhaps her place within it. She wasn't here for a lesson. She was here because she had been caught, summoned to receive her punishment.
Professor Snape sat behind his desk, quill in hand, scratching something onto a roll of parchment. His desk sat at the far end, a stack of parchment rolls—essays, presumably—waiting to be marked. The office was only lit by a candle floating above the desk and the low burning fire in the grate, casting flickering shadows across the professor's face, accentuating the hollows beneath his cheekbones and made him look as if carved from stone rather than flesh.
He didn't look up when she entered, nor did he acknowledge her presence at all, and Betty stood waiting in front of his desk with her hands clasped behind her back, unsure whether she was supposed to speak or simply wait there until he decided to notice her.
She knew that he knew she was there; he had called her in. But he acted as if she were invisible, and the silence stretched so long that Betty began to wonder if this was part of the punishment—to be made to wait, to be made uncertain, and to be stripped of the small dignity of being seen.
She cleared her throat.
Finally, the quill stilled. Without raising his head, the professor summoned a small table and chair with a flick of his wand, appearing in front of his desk.
"Sit," he said, without lifting his gaze.
She pulled out the chair and sat down.
A long silence stretched between them. She could only hear her own breathing, the soft rustle of his robes as he rose from his chair, the quiet fall of his footsteps as he walked around his desk and stopped in front of her, towering above her.
"You expect me to believe," he began coldly, "that you acquired a self-writing quill from Zonko's and thought this an appropriate solution to your academic shortcomings?"
His gaze sharpened. "Or is this meant to be amusing?"
Betty shook her head once. "No, sir."
"So, was it sheer... stupidity?"
Betty's jaw tightened. She wasn't stupid, and she didn't want him to think she was.
"I didn't buy it from Zonko's," she persisted. "I made it myself."
The professor blinked once.
"Don't lie to me."
"I'm not lying," Betty insisted. "I enchanted it myself."
His expression darkened slightly.
"A first-year," he said slowly, as if testing the absurdity of the words, "claiming to have produced a writing implement. Do not insult my intelligence."
He stepped closer.
"Try again."
Betty felt her face burn. The urge to explain it made the words spill out of her mouth before she could stop them.
"But I did," she insisted. "Intention, that's the first principle of charms, right? So, I modified it with each try. First, I made it write down everything I said, but I realised that wasn't efficient, and I felt tired talking so much, so I tried to link it more directly. I thought, if I connected it directly to my mind, and write down my thoughts instead of having to phrase them. But it was a disaster, it started writing down everything I said, if only I had a filter for—"
"You have—what?!"
Professor Snape said it so abruptly, his words cutting through hers, that she flinched in surprise.
"Yes?"
"You have linked your mind," he repeated, his voice suddenly ice-cold, "to your quill?"
Betty gave a small, hesitant nod. "Salazar Slytherin—known for being a natural Legilimens—enchanted the Sorting Hat, didn't he?"
The professor went very still; his eyes narrowed to slits and he bent over her.
Betty swallowed.
"I have endured years of teaching you the craft required to close your mind," he said so quietly, she could barely hear his voice, yet his meaning was unmistakable, "only for you to carelessly bind it to a... quill?"
Betty's gaze dropped before she could stop it. Her fingers tightened slightly against the edge of the desk.
The way he now phrased it, with the scornful disbelief in his voice—it did sound careless.
How could she have been so reckless, so stupid?
Over the years, she had tried to learn how to read Severus Snape. Compared to the adults around her, who were always trying to keep their feelings from her, it was fairly easy to see through them—even without slipping into their minds. The emotions she could sense often gave enough away for her to notice when something was off, when someone was lying to her, when someone was hiding something. Even Lucinda, who barely showed anything on her face, Betty could sense the emotions beneath that unreadable mask. She had learned, early on, to accept secrets as part of being human.
With Severus Snape, however, it was different.
She couldn't feel anything from him. Not anger, not joy, not even a flicker of boredom. Just a solid, emotionless wall. And somehow, she had always found it comforting. It wasn't that she found his immediate presence particularly reassuring—it was more the fact that she was less distracted and could focus more on herself.
Only once, when she was small, she had felt something—but the memory was so faint she could no longer be sure it had been real.
And though she had spent years trying to find out what he was hiding behind that armour, she had learned instead to read between his lines, to analyse his body language, the weight of his silences, the precise temperature of his tone. She had tried for years to understand what he expected from her, but she had never been able to find out.
Betty would have never thought of herself as someone who could disappoint him, for that implied she had ever been in a position to meet his expectations in the first place.
And yet, sitting on that chair, with him towering above her, she felt like she had failed him completely.
Her throat tightened. How could she have been so stupid.
Her spiralling thoughts were interrupted by the professor flicking his wand. An empty parchment, a quill and a heavy volume from the shelf floated down onto the table in front of her.
"Now," he said coldly. "Write an essay detailing the procedure to be followed if one accidentally ingested Weedosoros. The immediate steps, the necessary counteragents, and the reasoning behind each choice. By your own hand. You will remain here until it is completed."
Betty blinked. She had never brewed this potion, nor studied it, nor was she even sure she had heard of it before.
"Sir?" she said carefully. "I don't think I've—"
"You are not here to demonstrate your ignorance," he interrupted. "You are here to demonstrate that you are capable of something other than reckless self-sabotage. Begin."
Betty pressed her lips together. "Yes, sir."
She pulled the heavy volume towards her. The book was old, its leather cover cracked and faded, its pages thin and yellowed from years—perhaps decades—of use, and at first glance it seemed utterly useless: the text on Weedosoros was sparse, listing only the name and a warning about convulsions, with no mention of brewing, no list of ingredients, nothing at all that would help her write an essay.
Betty stared at the page, then looked up at the professor.
He was seated behind his desk, quill moving steadily across a roll of parchment, his face giving nothing away as he refused to look at her.
She looked back at the book.
He's testing me, she realised. He's given me something impossible.
Her jaw tightened; her hands clenched into fists under the edge of the table.
She took a breath and forced herself to think. How was she supposed to write about the procedure for someone who had ingested Weedosoros, when the book said hardly anything about it? But he had given her especially this one.
She stared into the fire for almost ten minutes, not knowing how to begin, and panic began to well up inside her. How was she going to sort this out?
He wants to see if I'll give up.
She, however, wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
Betty flicked back to the section about Weedosoros. It causes convulsions—so it must be a poison. She closed the book which bear the inscription 'Poisons and Antidotes: An Encyclopaedia'. He had given her a poison, she was now sure of that, and if it was a poison, then the relevant material wouldn't be in the entry on the poison itself—it would be in the chapter on antidotes. Perhaps, she didn't need to know the poisons ingredients. That was impossible given the information available. But it wasn't impossible to put together a general, speculative approach.
She flipped through the pages, searching for the right chapter. Her heart pounded, but her hands were steady.
She found the chapter about Antidotes and scanned the opening paragraphs, until she found the section she needed, waiting for her all along. 'Counteragents and Neutralisation', and then another on Golpalott's Third Law, which had something to do with blended poisons requiring blended antidotes—not a simple mixture of individual antidotes, but an entirely new, superior antidote that transformed the whole rather than merely counteracting its parts.
She didn't fully understand what it meant, nor was she sure she was supposed to, but she understood the shape of the problem well enough to know where to begin. She tried to understand the—very dry and theoretic—Golpalott's Third Law.
But what if Weedosoros wasn't a blended poison at all?
In that case, this law wouldn't apply to this poison. But what if it did?
A poison needed a counteragent, and so she thought about what she already knew: bezoars, binding agents, the way her mother would first identify the toxic agent and then search for something that clung to it, neutralised it, or hurried it through the body before it could do lasting harm.
At first, her hand trembled, the words coming slowly, as if they had to fight their way onto the parchment while she could feel him behind her; the professor had risen from his chair, watching her above her shoulder—unmoving, not speaking—the weight of him watching pressing against her back.
But she kept writing, and then, somehow, the trembling stopped, though she couldn't have said exactly when it happened—perhaps after the third paragraph, when the shape of the argument had begun to form in her mind and the pressure that had felt suffocating instead became a kind of container, holding her thoughts in place so they couldn't scatter.
She wrote faster after that, stopping only to flex her aching wrist and gather her thoughts before diving back in, the scratching of her quill filling the silence as she dipped it in ink and continued, her hand moving across the parchment with a certainty she hadn'tt felt in weeks; the ideas didn't come in order but in waves, each one building on the last even if the structure was chaotic.
Soon, Betty lost track of time, the fire crackling beside her and the candle above the professor's desk burning lower, and she wrote like she had not written ever—not like this, not with this strange and focused urgency—until finally she set down her quill, her hand aching, and looked at the essay lying in front of her: dense, speculative, and a complete mess, with paragraphs that started in one place and ended in another, underlined phrases, crossed-out lines where she had changed her mind mid-sentence, arrows connecting thoughts that should have been adjacent but weren't. She hadn't realised how much she had written until she looked at the stack of parchment.
She might not have answered the prompt, but the reasoning was there, and it was plausible; not neat nor elegant, but she had tried to answer the assignment, and that, she told herself, had to count for something.
She lifted her head.
The professor had taken his seat behind his desk again, quill moving steadily across what looked like an essay. He hadn't looked up once in the past hour—not to check on her progress, not to comment, not to acknowledge her presence at all. He had simply... been waiting.
Betty watched him for a moment longer, tilting her head slightly.
In class, he always seemed to perform—the sneer, the silences, the way he let the Slytherins laugh and the Gryffindors fall silent. But here, with no audience, he was different. Not kinder, not softer; he was quiet in a way that felt less like a weapon and more like he was simply existing beside her, and she wasn't sure what to do with that.
Betty looked down at her essay, then back at him.
"That was so much easier, sir," she said, trying to sound almost cheerful, "Almost pleasant. I think I work better under pressure."
He didn't look up; his quill didn't stop moving.
"Perhaps," she added, "I should get detention with you more often."
The quill paused. He looked up. For a fraction of a second, something flickered across his face—not quite approval, far from that but something. Like a crack in the armour, before his expression smoothed back into its usual cold mask.
He set down the quill.
"Get out," he said sharply.
Betty jumped from the seat and headed for the door. As it closed behind her, she felt five pounds lighter.
* * *
Betty sat in the back corner of the library, books spread across the table, trying—with diminishing hope—to produce something resembling an essay for History of Magic; and although Professor Binns had seemed perfectly satisfied with the cheated homework she had submitted the week before, Betty did not dare cast a spell on her quill again, not after detention, not after Professor Snape had called it what it was—careless, reckless, a betrayal of everything he had spent years teaching her. Thus, the empty parchment in front of her remained stubbornly blank.
She wasn't really reading, but rather lost in thought; her gaze was unfocused, fidgeting with the quill in her hand, unable to shake off the events of the past week.
The essay during detention had been surprisingly easy with Professor Snape watching; the pressure had forced her ideas into better order than any other solution would have, and she had written faster and more clearly than she had in weeks, perhaps months, perhaps ever. If only she could find another way to recreate that feeling at will, to use it whenever her mind refused to cooperate.
Her eyes drifted to the corner of her parchment, where a small ink sketch of the professor's profile stared back at her—the sharp lines, the hooked nose, the expression of permanent disapproval that she had captured with a few strokes of her quill.
If I could enchant this, she thought, a miniature Snape to watch me while I work.
Or an illusion, something that would sit on the corner of her desk and glare until she finished her homework, its painted eyes following her every movement like a silent, judgmental guardian.
She glanced around the library.
No. That will terrify the other students.
She sighed and reached for her quill—then stopped when she heard footsteps approaching, not the soft, stealthy padding of Madame Pince, who peered out from between the shelves like a watchful hawk searching for students foolish enough to eat chocolate frogs or chatter too loudly, but something else entirely: footsteps that were rather bouncy, but also deliberate, direct, purposeful—and yet, she noticed, they became rather slower the closer they got to her, as if the owner might change his mind at any moment.
Even though no one else was sitting in that back corner, Betty secretly hoped that this person hadn't come looking for her.
Eventually, they stopped right in front of her table, and a few seconds passed, before a clearing of the throat broke the silence.
Betty looked up, and grey-blue eyes met hers.
Cormac stood there, hands in his robe pockets and head slightly tilted, looking at her as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
"I saw you staring at those books for half an hour," he said, trying to sound as confident as always. "Need some help?"
"I don't need your help, McLaggen," Betty returned, lowering her gaze.
He raised an eyebrow but didn't move; instead, he pointed at the empty parchment.
"You haven't written anything in the last thirty minutes."
She looked down at her—almost—blank sheet parchment, irritation passing through her—why did he always have to watch her? Though she couldn't deny that he wasn't wrong, and, in truth, she could actually use some help. She sighed.
"Okay," she admitted, "maybe I do."
A smile spread across Cormac's face; he seemed almost surprised that she had given in so quickly. He pulled up the chair opposite her and sank into it.
"Good. History is actually my speciality," he said confidently, "one of my specialities."
Betty hid her eye roll behind her hand.
"You know," he added, leaning back, "one day I want to be the professor for History of Magic."
Betty looked up, raising an eyebrow. "You'd have to outlive Professor Binns first."
"I can't outlive a ghost," he replied, looking confused. "How am I supposed to—"
"That was a joke," she interrupted him.
He stared at her for a beat.
"Ah. Yes. Obviously."
He leaned forward, curiosity getting the better of him, and reached for the corner of her parchment, pulling it towards him. "Are you drawing Snape?"
"Yep."
"Why?"
He turned the parchment slightly, examining the sketch. "It's pretty good, actually. Very accurate. You've captured his grumpy look very well."
"I want to enchant it," she responded without batting an eyelid, "so I have a copy of him watching me while I work. Doing homework is much easier that way."
Cormac laughed loudly, and a few heads turned in their direction, casting him annoyed glances before returning to their books.
"This was... not a joke," Betty interjected.
Cormac's laugh died instantly.
"Oh." He cleared his throat. "Sorry."
She shrugged, and turned back to her parchment.
"So..." he began, "did you survive detention?"
"Surprisingly well."
"Good."
A pause followed, during which Cormac's gaze dropped to her hands and then lingered on the quill she was holding.
"Uh, that quill," he said carefully, "the other one Snape confiscated."
Betty looked up.
"We were talking about it the other day," he continued. "Wood thinks there's no way a first-year could enchant something like that. Claims you probably bought it from Zonko's and got caught." He paused. "But I told him you wouldn't fall for something that stupid."
"I did make it myself," Betty said quietly.
Cormac's face lit up. "I knew it! You're too smart to fall for Zonko's rubbish."
Betty stared at him, caught off guard by the realisation that this was, perhaps, the nicest thing he had ever said to her; then she looked away, reaching for her history book to fill the awkward tension, and for a moment neither of them spoke.
Cormac pulled his bag onto the table and began unpacking—books, parchment, quills spreading across the surface with little regard for order; then he pushed his history essay towards her with a wordless gesture. She took his parchment and began transcribing—until her eyes caught on a line halfway through the page, making her pause.
"Wait," she said. "This isn't right."
Cormac looked up from his own notes. "What?"
Betty pointed her finger at the sentence. "You wrote about the Transfiguration treaty. But the treaty isn't about physical transformation. It's about conceptual change—how magic is understood, not how it's applied."
Cormac leaned closer. "No, it's not. It clearly says the Transfiguration treaty."
"The book clearly states that it's about change of—" She broke off, flipping through her own book.
Cormac frowned. "Which book are you using?"
Betty pulled a thick volume from her stack and held it up. "Die Geschichte der Zaubererpolitik im siebzehnten Jahrhundert. Why?"
Cormac stared at her. "Is that in German?"
"Yes. The English version has several errors. They lose the distinction between theoretical and applied Transfiguration throughout the whole chapter."
"Where did you get this?"
She pointed towards the relevant department. "In the library's international section."
"Ah. And you read that for... fun?"
Betty shoke her head. "I read it because the English version is wrong," she said. "See."
She pulled the book closer, flipping through the pages until she found the original passage.
"For example: It originally says Wandlung—which means change, in the conceptual sense. Not transfiguration. That would be Verwandlung—physical transformation."
A beat passed.
"I found another error. Here," she pointed at another sentence. "Nicht unüblich doesn't mean unusual. It means not uncommon. It's a double negation. You're misinterpreting the whole paragraph."
"You're telling me," Cormac said slowly, "that you take time to translate German magical history? Just to write an essay?"
Betty frowned. "Why would I translate it?"
Cormac blinked. "To understand it?"
"But I already understand it."
Cormac watched her in disbelief. "So you actually speak German. Of course you do."
Betty missed the sarcasm completely. "I do," she confirmed. "I mean, I have an accent..." she trailed off and shrugged.
His mouth dropped. "Why?" he asked.
"Because it's not my native language, and I don't speak it regularly."
"I mean, why do you know German in the first place?"
Betty looked at him, genuinely puzzled. "Because German is the most spoken language in Wizarding Europe. Alongside French."
Cormac stared at her. "Yes, and both French and German-speaking historians still argue about which one dominates magical academia. I know that. But that doesn't mean I speak both." He stared at her for a second longer than necessary. "And of course you speak French too, right?"
Betty shrugged, then nodded.
He let out a short, incredulous breath.
"My mum's mother was French," Betty said quietly, almost apologetically. "And the Malfoy roots are in France. My mum is fluent in probably five dozen languages, so she made me study them."
Cormac looked at her as if he was pitying her. "So you know more than German and French?"
"Yes."
Cormac asked, now he seemed genuinely intrigued. "How many?"
Betty ticked them off on her fingers. "Basic Latin and Ancient Greek, some Arabic, Old Norse, Swah—"
"Old Norse?"
Betty hesitated. "Yes. For the runic texts. It's pretty useful to know." Her face lit up. "Did you know that there are... five different Runic systems around all of Europe? There's the Elder Futhark, the Anglo-Saxon Futhorc, the Younger Futhark, and the Medieval Futhork—all Germanic. And most only study Elder Futhark—"
She stopped mid-sentence when she noticed the bewildered expression on Cormac's face—and her gaze dropped to her parchment, suddenly unwilling to meet his eyes.
Cormac just stared at her for a long moment, until at last he exhaled sharply.
"Why am I even helping you if you know it better anyway?"
Betty set down her quill, frowning.
"First," she said, annoyed, "you wanted to help me. Second, I struggle with writing it down—not because I don't understand it." She softened slighlty. "I accepted your offer because I actually need help."
Cormac went quiet for a moment, until he nodded.
"Okay," he said, a smile tugged his lips. "I can help you with that."
Betty smiled back. "Thank you," she replied.
"But seriously. Where do you know all these stuff?"
"I was homeschooled. You weren't?"
"I was."
"And your teacher didn't teach you any of that?"
Cormac laughed—not mockingly, just surprised. "My teacher was my mum. She taught me what she knew. And she didn't know... that."
He shook his head. "You're telling me you had private tutors?"
Betty shifted in her seat. "Well... not exactly private teachers. Some of mum's friends helped out. Or my aunt."
"For languages and—what else?"
"Mathematics... History... Etiquette."
"Etiquette?" Cormac laughed. "What does it even mean?"
She pulled a face. "How to eat properly. How to speak to guests. Classic dance... oh and how to dress appropriately. My mum mostly gave up on that, though. But I do know how to behave when I have to. That's enough for her."
She scanned his puzzled face. "You... didn't?"
Cormac snorted. "I didn't have that. Of course I didn't. I'm not a Black or a Malfoy." He rolled his eyes. "Offspring of the two most noble houses in Great Britain."
Betty frowned. "I'm not... noble."
"Do you have a house-elf?"
She hesitated. "Yes."
"See?" He leaned back, triumphantly crossing his arms before his chest. "You have a house-elf. You speak five... six? Languages. You were taught etiquette. You're basically royalty."
"I'm not royalty!"
"You have a house-elf," Cormac exclaimed. "I beg you. Who else do you know who has a house-elf?"
Betty felt heat rise in her cheeks and looked down at her hands, her thoughts turning to the Weasleys, who had never owned a house-elf, and to the Tonks'—Andromeda included, despite being a Black by birth—who had never had one either; none of them, she realised, and yet she had never thought to question why that might be. She chewed on the inside of her cheek.
"So why have you been trying to impress me since the day we met," she asked, her voice coming out more defensively than she had intended, "if you think I'm a snob?"
Cormac went still at that, his neck flushing red, and for a moment he didn't speak.
"I—I didn't... mean to offend you," he stuttered, then he gave a shrug. "I don't think you're a snob. But it's true."
He fell silent again. He looked at her for a while before adding, "You didn't spend a lot of time with other kids, did you?"
Betty shook her head. "Most just found me odd."
"Because you are odd."
She looked up, uncertain if he was mocking her, yet finding no cruelty in his expression.
"You're top of Charms and Transfiguration," he went on to explain. "You just stare at whatever's in front of you, tap your wand, and don't even move your lips. I swear, some people think you don't even do the magic yourself—that you have an elf hiding under your cloak."
Betty frowned. "I don't."
"That's what I said!"
She hesitated. Then, quietly, "I prefer doing it nonverbally."
Cormac's eyebrows shot up. "Nonverbally? That's pretty advanced, right? That's NEWT-level."
Betty bit her lip. "I just don't like talking much."
"Which is even odder, really, for someone who claims not to like talking." He paused, his brow furrowing slightly. "Well, you're frightening half our year."
"That... that's different." She looked down at her hands. "I don't want anyone to be frightened of me."
Cormac studied her for a moment. Then his expression softened.
"You don't scare me," he said.
Betty glanced up. "Obviously. Otherwise you wouldn't keep trying to talk to me."
He blinked. Then, slowly, another flush crept up his neck.
"Was that a joke?" he asked.
"Yes."
"Oh." He cleared his throat. "Good."
They worked for a little while longer, the only sounds were the scratch of quills on parchment, the occasional rustle of pages, or a cough from somewhere among the stacks. When Betty had finished copying the main points, she set down her quill and looked at him—and found him deeply concentrated in a way that surprised her, his eyebrows slightly furrowed as he paused briefly, thought for a moment, and then continued writing.
When he realised he was being watched, he looked up.
"What?" he said with a grin.
"Tell me about yourself," she said without beating about the bush.
Cormac looked startled. "Huh?"
"You know about my mum, my tutors, the languages. What about you? You said your mum taught you."
He shrugged. "She did. She's not a professor or anything, but she knows enough."
"How is it being taught by your mum? Seeing her all day?"
Cormac's expression softened, the usual bravado fading into something more unguarded. "It's great, but... she doesn't know everything, you know?" He paused, a small smile tugging at his lips. "She makes really good cakes, though."
He smiled again and Betty felt it then, a flicker of sadness radiating from him; she realised, that he must be missing her.
"That sounds nice," Betty said softly, and gave him a smile. "Having a mum teach you. I wish mine had more time. I mostly stayed with my aunt and uncle. My aunt Dromeda," she added, "she makes the best pastries in the world. Actually, she taught me a lot too. Unlike me, she actually grew up in the Black family—I don't envy her."
Cormac laughed, then looked at her again, his expression shifting to something more intent.
"Why aren't you with your parents?"
Betty hesitated at the word 'parents', the plural catching her off guard.
"My mum," she began, her voice tentative as she fiddled with the hem of her sleeve, "she's always travelling." She paused, glancing down at her hands. "But I did watch her brew potions a lot."
Cormac smirked. "That's why you're so good at Potions. If you were a Slytherin, you'd be the star of our class."
Betty was stunned by the admission; she gave a small shrug, then shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
"I... never thought about it."
"And your dad?" he kept asking.
"My... dad," Betty repeated, thinking of something that was not a lie but would not reveal his identity either, some version of the truth that she could offer without revealing too much of him. "He left us when I was a toddler. I can't really remember him."
"Oh," Cormac muttered, with a surprising sense of compassion. "My parents separated when I was eight."
Betty didn't know what to say, and so she simply stared at her fingers, watching them twist the hem of her sleeve.
"He works at the Ministry," he continued. "He's quite strict. 'Remember, son,'" his voice dropped an octave, "'a McLaggen never lets himself get down.'" He shrugged. "He expects a lot. Wants me to be Head Boy. Quidditch Captain. Top of every class." A short laugh. "As long as I don't embarrass him."
He sighed, then lowered his gaze and stared into nothingness, his usual confidence was noe completely gone.
Betty looked at him, and suddenly, it made sense—the way he acted, the constant need to prove himself, the bravado that always felt too loud; something in her understanding about shifted. Once again, she had no idea how to respond.
Then, as if Cormac had said too much, or perhaps realised he had let her see something he hadn't meant to show, he straightened, his posture snapping back into its familiar lines.
"Have you ever had to attend official stuff?" he asked curiously.
"Sometimes, yes."
He wrinkled his nose. "Sounds boring."
"Oh, it is," Betty agreed, nodding heavily. "Everyone wants to shake your hand and ask the same questions. Mum says 'Making contacts is important for your future.'" She imitated Lucinda's stern voice.
Cormac laughed out loud, only to gain some more annoyed looks by students sitting nearby. However, he didn't notice.
"Are there any interesting people?"
"I once met this man," Betty said, giggling. "He was so ancient, Dumbledore looks young compared to him."
Cormac cuckled. "Really? Who?"
"I can't remember his name," Betty admitted. "Some potioneer or alchemist. French, I think. He wouldn't stop talking about his research." She giggled once again. "So, I hid under the table."
Cormac snorted.
"He followed me," she kept telling him, grinning now. "Said he couldn't stand the long speeches either. And everyone kept asking about his stone. Whatever that was."
Cormac frowned. "His stone?"
"I don't know. I was seven. I just wanted to escape the ballroom." She shrugged. "He was quite silly, actually. For someone you'd expect to be very... dignified."
She paused and smiled as she recalled a particular memory. "We collected frogs from the garden together. He said it reminded him of being a boy. And then we accidentally released them under the attendees' tables."
Cormac stared at her. "You what?"
"I put them in the pockets of my dress. About a dozen. They were so tiny."
He pulled a face. "Why?"
"I thought I was rescuing them," she explained with a shrug, "from the snakes."
"By bringing them to a ball."
"They seemed to enjoy it," Betty returned, then giggled. "One of them escaped and ended up in the ambassador's punch bowl. But Nicky convinced the ambassador it wasn't my fault. Spared my mother a lot of embarrassment."
Cormac suddenly went very still.
"Wait," he said slowly. "Nicky?"
Betty nodded. "He said to call him that."
"You mean," Cormac said, his voice trembling slightly, "Nicholas Flamel?"
"What?" Betty blinked. "No, it wasn't—"
"The only alchemist with a famous stone," Cormac insisted, ticking the points off on his fingers as he spoke. "French. Ancient. Dumbledore-young comparison. Ambassadors asking about his stone. That's Flamel. Nicholas Flamel."
Betty stared at him, mouth agape. "Oh. I didn't know. He never introduced himself as Nicholas. He just said 'call me Nicky' and asked if I liked frogs."
Cormac laughed. "He seems nice."
"Oh yes," Betty confirmed with a smile. "He is."
A small silence settled between them, but not uncomfortable this time.
"Oh," Cormac said eventually, as if remembering something, "and what happened to the frogs?"
"I released them in the garden afterward."
"The snakes probably got them," he exclaimed, half-horrified, half-amused, "so the frogs died!"
"The snakes ate well," Betty corrected. "It's called the circle of life. That's what Nicky—Flamel—said."
Cormac stared at her for a long moment, his expression caught somewhere between exasperation and admiration. Then he shook his head.
"You're so odd," he said.
"You already said that," Betty replied.
"But... in a cool way."
He glanced at his watch then, and something in his expression shifted—a note of regret, perhaps, or the sudden awareness of time slipping away. He gathered his things, stuffed parchment and quills into his bag with the hurried efficiency of someone who had lingered longer than intended.
"Sorry. Got plans with Wood and Hopkins," he apologised, already half out of his chair. "Same time tomorrow? For the other essays?"
Betty hesitated, just for a moment, before she nodded. "Same time."
Betty watched him go, then looked down at the finished essay—half copied, half self-written—and smiled.
"Never judge a book by its cover," Ted had once said to her when she had dismissively pushed a particularly ugly book aside, not knowing that its worn leather and cracked spine concealed one of the most fascinating stories she would ever read.
Maybe, she thought, that applied to people too.