Chapter 69

A book slammed shut beside her and Atlas shot up, blinking rapidly as she looked around, only to see Harry collecting his stuff with an irritated look on his face. It seemed Hermione and Ron’s bickering Atlas had been using to lul her to sleep, had gotten too much for the boy to bear as he was collecting his homework together and moving with so much vigour, Atlas thought he might snap his neck with the amount of ferocity he put into looking for the rest of his books.

Of course, Hermione and Ron remained oblivious to this, arguing about their failed attempt at getting stuff out of Winky after a trip to the kitchens that morning. They’d been kicked out after Hermione made a comment about freedom, well, she, Harry and Ron had been kicked out, Atlas had been treated to a nice peach crumble but had to leave it in favour of calming down Hermione. It hadn’t gone too well considering she and Ron were still feuding hours later.

“You couldn’t have kept your mouth shut could you!?” Ron shouted. “They won’t want us visiting them now! We could’ve tried to get more stuff out of Winky about Crouch!”

“Oh, as if you care about that!” Hermione scoffed, looking up from her Potions homework with a scowl. “You only like going down there for the food!”

“Guys, why don’t we just — ?” 

“That’s completely off the point!” Ron interrupted, completely blanking Atlas’s words. “Winky could have spilt all of Crouch’s dirty little secrets but you couldn’t keep your trap shut! You just had to ruin it like you always do!”

“Ron –“

“Leave it Atlas, I’ll sort this idiot out myself,” Hermione said and Atlas threw her hands up, nodding respectfully as she just decided to leave, following Harry when the boy had finally collected his stuff and had advanced on the exit. She jogged to slip through the closing portrait and settled beside him as they walked, their destination evidently being the Owlery as they had soon found themselves outside and at the foot of the tower.

They remained mostly silent but Harry did occasional grumble his frustrations about their two friends, Atlas couldn’t help but agree most of the time. Ron and Hermione bickered like bitter rivals – like there was genuine dislike between them that was only just covered by their friendship – because Hermione and Ron enjoyed each others company, they all did, however, their ability to crumble into a week-long argument was horrific and downright deplorable. It really did get annoying sometimes.

Harry silently got to wrapping up food and attaching packages to the legs of owls he would send off to Sirius, Pigwidgeon took the smaller stuff and Atlas tied those bits to his legs, muttering a strengthening charm under her breath that earned her a sweet little coo of fondness from the Scops Owl. Atlas would have suggested Harry took Kalo, but the little blighter had been missing for the past couple of days, which wasn’t strange, the owl did like to wander and explore but it would have been nice if he’d let Atlas know. The little shit.

When they’d finished and let the owls fly, Atlas suggested they stay up there, content in looking out to the forest and watching the Thestrals teaching their foals to fly, she leant through one of the windows and simply watched, silently, a small smile on her face.

“What are you looking at?” Harry asked, breaking their silence, Atlas glanced over to him, feeling some sort of happiness in knowing Harry didn’t meet the requirements to see what she was seeing, thankful he did not remember witnessing Lily’s death. 

“Just…the sunset,” she lied, but not out of malice, she just didn’t want to put a dampener on their pleasant mood. “It’s beautiful isn’t it?”

“Yeah…it is,” Harry smiled with her. “Hey…you can talk to me, you know that right?”

“Of course. Why do you ask?”

“I just notice you — er — talk to Hermione a lot, I guess I just wanted to say you can talk to me as well. I’m your brother and well, I’ve sort of always wanted a sister who will rely on me and who I can rely on,” Harry shrugged and Atlas glanced over at him.

“I didn’t realise it bothered you…I’m sorry.”

“No, no, it’s not that…well, I guess it sort of does, but only because I want to help you. I get that you talk to Hermione more because you love her–“

“I — I don’t…”

“Maybe you can’t say you do, but I can see it…feel it, when you look at her with Krum,” Harry smiled, looking back at her, Atlas simply stared before smiling herself, shaking her head in disbelief. “I’m just trying to say…I want you to talk to me too, like…about the Monster.”

“Straight for the throat,” Atlas sighed. “Yeah, alright,” she conceded, “the Monster is what killed my mum, Peter was there with it the night she was killed. It’s what gave me these scars and well…it’s marked me. Dad says it’ll follow me now. I’m constantly being hunted by it, Harry and…well it’s found me, it’s already been on Hogwarts grounds, it can get to me whenever it wants. It’s just toying with me I think and trying to get me to…explode.”

“Explode?” Harry echoed, looking incredibly concerned.

“My magic is…powerful, remember that night we were chosen and I made a thing about not being able to compete?” Harry uttered some sort of affirmation. “It’s because in extremely stressful situations my heart cramps up, either because of danger to come or danger within, my arms get numb and my magic explodes. I almost destroyed Hogsmeade when I was 5 because of it.”

“When you were 5?” Harry whispered and Atlas mutely nodded. “Well…if it makes you feel better I accidentally set a python on my cousin Dudley at the zoo once.”

Atlas laughed, in a way that was sort of wet and tired but a laugh nonetheless, she glanced over to her god-brother with a smile, shaking her head in amusement as he continued to grin. “You’re a prick, Potter.”

“I know, Black,” he laughed, “seriously though, I suppose we both have scary abilities. I can speak Parseltongue.”

“No fucking way,” Atlas gaped.

“Yeah, it’s how I opened the Chamber of Secrets,” He beamed proudly.

“Minerva leaves out all of the juicy bits, I swear,” Atlas sighed, pressing her face to the wind as a gust blew past her window. “Could you teach me?”

“Parseltongue?”

“Duh.”

“Wouldn’t know how.”

“Just speak to me. Say something in your snakey language.”

“Alright–“

Determined to learn the language of the snakes’ Atlas and Harry stayed in the Owlery until the wee hours of the morning, eventually casting their gazes to the grounds, practising Atlas’s Parseltongue but also watching as Hagrid ambled through the dark, digging by the front of his cabin until the night swallowed him and the owls around them began to awake, swooshing past them into the gloom. 

They retreated only when Mrs Norris came padding into the room, meowing incessantly and alerting Filch of their transgressions, being out of bed past curfew. By breakfast, the next day, Harry and Atlas, were some of the first to rise, having fallen asleep in the Common Room together after spending a few more hours talking back and forth in hissed words. Atlas found it was quite fun – disregarding the looks they got from a few that caught their whispers – and Harry seemed to be happy there was another person who was not trying to kill him that could now speak even a slither of Parseltongue.

“Morning.”

The siblings stopped their lesson, looking up as Ron and Hermione approached, Ron, looking nonchalant while Hermione looked a little perturbed. She hurriedly sat down next to Atlas, looking her over with a hint of annoyance mixed with worry.

“You didn’t come up to bed.”

“I fell asleep in the Common Room,” Atlas smiled sheepishly.

“Crookshanks wouldn’t stop pacing,” Hermione muttered.

“Crookshanks, huh? Didn’t know you changed your name…” Harry mumbled, chewing on a piece of sausage, Ron choked on his pumpkin juice and Atlas failed to cover up her snort of laughter. Hermione simply glared at him, cheeks tinting the slightest bit red before she seemed to get them under control and simply turned her nose up at him.

“I’ll tell uh…Crookshanks, I’m sorry when I next see him,” Atlas managed, unable to stop the grin from growing across her face.

“Oh shut up,” Hermione huffed and then apparently dropped the topic as a whole as her demeanour shifted, her eyes now to the ceiling as the morning post came flying through.

“Percy won’t have answered yet, we only sent Hedwig yesterday,” Ron said.

“No, it’s not that,” Hermione refuted. “I’ve taken out a subscription to the Daily Prophet. I’m getting sick of finding everything out from the Slytherins.”

“Good thinking,” Harry complimented.

“You sent him a letter then?” Atlas asked Ron, spreading a few blotches of peach jam across her toast.

“Yeah, Hermione proofread it so it doesn’t sound like we’re accusing Crouch of anything,” Ron confirmed and then seemed to ponder on something. “Hey Atlas, do you think we could talk sometime about–“

A grey owl came stumbling to a stop in front of them, followed by four barn owls, a brown owl and pretty looking tawny. Atlas stuffed her piece of toast in her mouth, raising her hands in the air to stop the owls from perching themselves on her, that proved to be a useless move as they all seemed to jump onto her regardless. It was even worse when even more owls came flying over to her, only jumping down to push their letters into Hermione’s face, fighting to get theirs taken first.

“Alright, everybody off!” Atlas shouted, apparently startling most of them away, there was one that remained. however, it looked to be an old girl so Atlas didn’t push for the lady to leave, instead, she handed the owl a Knut from her pocket and brushed against her chest faintly. Old birds like this one needed a little extra love.

“How many subscriptions did you take out?” Harry grinned, catching Ron’s goblet of pumpkin juice before it toppled over.

“What on earth — ?” Hermione mumbled, taking the letter from the grey owl, opening it, and starting to read. “Oh really!” she sputtered, going rather red.

“What’s up?” Ron asked over a nice looking hashbrown.

“It’s – oh how ridiculous -“

She thrust a letter at Harry and then opened another one, reading it over before going a lovely pink that Atlas would have otherwise been captivated by if Hermione hadn’t shoved that letter in her face. She took it off course, more on reflex, and read the note composed from pasted letters that seemed to have been cut out of the Daily Prophet.

ATLAS DESERVES BETTER. STOP THE LOVE POTION, YOU WICKED GIRL.

BETTER GO BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM MUGGLE.

“They’re all like it!” Hermione said desperately, opening one letter after another, Atlas crumpled up the letter Hermione had handed her, knuckles turning white from her rage. The final line made her blood absolutely boil.  “‘Harry Potter can do much better than the likes of you…’ ‘You deserve to be boiled in frog spawn…’ ‘Atlas Black could never truly love you…'” — Atlas winced at that one, looking up only to catch the scent of something gas-like. It was a smell she knew well considering she ended up wearing it after every Herbology class.

“Wait, Hermione, don’t open that one!” she reached for it just as Hermione had ripped it open, smacking the girls hands away as her left was coated in a thick yellowish-green liquid.

“Atlas!” Hermione yelled as tears pricked at the girl’s eyes.

“Undiluted Bubotuber-Pus,” Ron said, looking at the scene with wide eyes as Harry stood up, scrambling to hand Atlas napkins and towelettes.

“Fuck…” Atlas practically whimpered, watching as her hand contorted and bubbled, the acidic mush seeping into the cracks of her burned arm and all of a sudden, it felt as if it was on fire again.

“You need to go to the hospital wing!” Harry said, trying his damndest to wrap his god-sisters hand up in useless paper napkins. “We’ll tell Professor Sprout where you’ve gone…Hermione, go with her, you should explain the situation to Madam Pomfrey.”

“R-right!” Hermione nodded and guided Atlas to stand, grabbing her stuff for her as she then ushered her out of the Great Hall, whispers and murmurs following them out. Atlas let out a breath of hot air as she threw her head back, taking in a breath and holding it to quell the burning pain she felt spreading up the length of her arm. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“What?” Atlas asked through gritted teeth.

“You should have just…I don’t know, not?”

“Not what?”

“You should have just let it splash over me!”

Atlas stared down at the girl blankly and when Hermione looked up at her, she was startled to see Atlas looking genuinely angry.

“Are you fucking kidding me? As if I would let some fucking reject who has some hopeless fucking crush on me for whatever reason, hurt you!” Atlas fumed, looking so furious Hermione was wary a few of the windows may burst. The girl began walking again, Hermione hurrying to keep up. “Not to mention how completely fucking braindead this person must be to tell you to go back to where you came from, it doesn’t matter that you’re Muggle-born! It’s a part of you and doesn’t make you any less of a witch than I am for fuck sake! You’re one of the brightest witches I have and will ever know!”

Atlas seemed to stop only to take a breath.

“And about the shit about me and Harry deserving better, that’s unicornshit, I’m telling you, if anything you deserve better. Harry clearly isn’t ready for a relationship right now and I’m…well, I have batshit crazy fans that would hurt the person I care about the most just because that Skeeter rat made you seem like a total player! Fuck, I am in so much pain!”

So much pain, she practically crashed through the doors of the infirmary, groaning out in frustration and misery. Poppy practically leapt up from her desk, looking at Atlas once before sighing and rubbing between her brows, seemingly debating on handing in her resignation papers.

“What is it this time?”

“Some fucker sent Mione Undiluted Bubotuber-Pus and it splashed on me!” Atlas fumed. Poppy nodded walking over to her cabinet of all things medical, eyes training over her supplies as she, fleetingly, cast a look to Hermione.

“And you Miss Granger, you seem to be running a temperature. Your face is quite red,” She mused, with a knowing lilt to her voice that Hermione seemed to flush even deeper at. Atlas, however, missed it completely as she was too busy kicking a tin bucket across the room and shouting profanities to the ceiling. “Miss Black, would you sit down and be quiet!”

“I’m fucking dying!”

“Die quieter!”

Atlas proceeded to bury her face in a pillow, screaming into it at the top of her lungs. Poppy simply rolled her eyes, whisking up some concoction while Hermione stared at her friend in concern mixed with some mild amusement.

“Don’t look too concerned dear, Atlas angry, while she’s in pain, is either the most horrifying and dangerous thing or well…that,” she gestured noncommittally over to the writhing form that was Atlas Magianima Black.

“Fuck!” Atlas moaned, drawing out the vowel as she finally sat up, looking over at Poppy as the woman approached her, stirring whatever it was she had in her opaque jar. Hermione followed, standing just behind the woman with her brows furrowed and cheeks still slightly flushed. “Please, Poppy, put me out of my misery.”

“I’m afraid I’d miss you too much.”

“Really?”

“No,” Poppy sighed and then without warning, poured the liquid over the infected area. And by Merlin, the profanities that left Atlas’s tongue that day would rival even the foulest of mouths. Hermione watched her with a grimace, Poppy simply walking away to wash out her jar as the boils seemed to disappear into greenish smoke, the swelling shrinking and Atlas’s hand, overall adopting a more natural look. It was still beat red, as if newly burnt and looked horrifically painful but it was better in a way. “Just like your mother.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“You shouldn’t,” Poppy deadpanned, “She once walked off a Manticore attack and came in the next day screaming in pain because she’d been bit by one of the school owls. Truly dramatic, just like you.”

“Never read about that one in her journals,” Atlas laughed, holding her hand out as Poppy came back with a bandage.

“I doubt she would have written about something so embarrassing.”

“Not true, her diaries were full of embarrassing stuff, I mean Journal #67, page number 75, talked about how she’d tried to use a Muggle toilet to get into the Ministry,” Atlas recited, swinging her legs back and forth as Poppy wrapped up her hand, Hermione simply watching her with a small smile, “and then in Journal #101, page number 191, she talked about how she’d accidentally apparated into a Muggle home in her underwear after thinking about it in her sleep.”

“How do you have them memorised?” Hermione asked just as Poppy finished. Atlas suddenly looked a little off, her mood dampened slightly as she shrugged. Poppy looked between the two, muttering something about paperwork before leaving them to it. “Sorry…I just thought it was sweet.”

“Sweet, huh?” Atlas smiled. “That’s a nice thought, but you were really asking because you noticed how I reacted when Ron asked me about it on Saturday, right?”

“I honestly do think it’s sweet, Atty, but,” Hermione sat beside her, “yeah…I did catch that.”

“I just read them a lot as a kid, I was sort of obsessed, it’s why I get defensive when someone asks me about them. It was like, if I knew every little detail about my mum’s life, it would feel as if she really wasn’t gone. It felt like she was telling me those stories,” Atlas admitted, “but it was never enough, not just because I didn’t have all of them but because she wasn’t there telling me the stories, it was just me reading her private thoughts.”

“I feel like she would have told you those stories though, I don’t think she would have kept them from you.”

“You think?” 

“Yeah.”

“That’s a nice thought,” Atlas smiled and then looked down to her hand, flexing it slightly. “My hands all good, we should get going.”

“We missed Herbology,” Hermione sighed, standing up and taking Atlas’s good hand in hers to pull her up. “But we’ve got Care of Magical Creatures.”

“A tragedy, truly. I’ll have to write a formal letter of apology to Professor Sprout,” Atlas mocked, stumbling upright with Hermione’s fingers still intertwined with her own, she seemed to sigh, shooting her bandaged hand a look of disdain as they left the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey shouting them a farewell as they went.

“Does it hurt still?”

“It’s sort of numb like I have thick rubber gloves on. It’s more annoying than anything,” Atlas grumbled and Hermione smiled sympathetically.

They continued out into the courtyard, carrying on down and across the lawn to Hagrid’s hut where the class was already well into their lesson and by the looks of it, with everybody excitedly rushing around the patch, it was a good one. It seemed Hagrid’s mission last night, digging up his front patch, had something to do with today’s lesson and Atlas had just gone a missed it. Not just that, but she had made Hermione miss it too.

“There yeh are!” Hagrid boomed, clapping his hands excitedly but his face soon dropped when he saw the thick bandage wrapped around Atlas’s hand and the purely miserable look on her face. “What’s got yeh so down, Atlas?”

“Everything,” Atlas mumbled.

Hagrid blanched, looking to Hermione as he fished for words of comfort but Hermione only shrugged, offering up a half-hearted smile. “Er, well, I have a right treat for yeh,” Hagrid looked across his patch and seemed to frown, looking all of a sudden sheepish, “a treat if yeh’d…gotten here on time. It — er — looks like we’re just about outta Leprechaun Gold…”

“Great…” Atlas slumped down the steps behind Hagrid.

“But — er — yeh can still play with one,” Hagrid offered, grabbing a closed crate and setting it in front of Atlas. 

The girl had been so bogged down by the news that she’d missed most of her Care For Magical Creatures lesson she hadn’t even bothered to take a peek at what the class had been working with. She perked up slightly, shuffling over a bit when Hermione came to sit next to her, her eyes trained on the crate that shook with every sudden noise made in the background, stopping altogether only when Hagrid pulled up the thick and heavy lid.

Inside were two curious-looking Nifflers, their noses twitching and black beady eyes staring up at them, curious and searching. Atlas grinned, her mood thoroughly lifted as she reached her healthy hand into the crate, inviting the little beasts to sniff at her knuckles and when they had, the both of them pounced out of the crate, climbing all over her, sniffling and sniffling. 

Their heads buried into her pockets, bills mousing about in secret compartments of her uniform and their entires bodies crawling all over hers, trying to get at all the loose change she had. It was only when she felt a tug on her half-tail did she finally retaliate, her hand coming up to clamp down on what one of the little Nifflers had tried to take. The hair clamp her dad had given her for Christmas. It tried to hold on as she wrestled it free from the little blighters grasp and eventually she held the guy out in front of her, her hair coming down to loosely brush across her shoulders.

“Let go, you can’t have this,” Atlas scolded, lightly but with enough firmness to send the little guy cowering. He let go, having the gall to look sheepish as Atlas set him back down, however, he did not return to explore her, instead, he hobbled over to Hermione, climbing into her lap to search her, though with so much hesitance Atlas actually felt quite bad.

“You scared him,” Hermione berated, shooting the girl beside her a short glare.

“He tried to nab my hair tie,” Atlas grumbled, bunching her hair up once again. She turned to watch Hermione’s Niffler climb up to the top button of her uniform, watching as it sniffed at her tie and down the gap where her shirt met her neck. Atlas’s eyes grew steadily wider, her lips parting slightly as she simply stopped and watched as the Niffler suddenly reached down her shirt. “Woah buddy!” she reached over, grabbing the Niffler by his scruff as she pulled him out from Hermione’s shirt. “Have some respect!”

“He was only trying to grab my pen and it seems he succeeded,” Hermione smiled, rolling her eyes at Atlas’s dramatic antics. Well, to Atlas they weren’t dramatic at all, what if the Niffler was actually some sleazy Animagus? Atlas looked between the two, noticing that the Niffler, had indeed, snatched up Hermione’s pen, the very same pen she had made the girl the Christmas prior. “Could I have that back?”

“Yeah, you heard, give it back you little bugger,” Atlas added, poking the little creatures tubby stomach, his pouch bulging from the treasures he’d looted from Atlas’s pockets. Probably money but the girl didn’t really mind, it was surely just some loose change.

“Don’t bully him,” Hermione snapped, flicking Atlas’s ear as she reached out and held the Niffler around the middle, sitting him down in her lap. While Atlas cradled her now throbbing ear, the Niffler that had been searching her suddenly came out from his hidey-hole and sat in her lap, watching as its friend was talked to by a very adoring looking Hermione. “How about this, if I give you another shiny treasure, you’ll give me back that crummy old thing?”

“Hey, I spent forever on that — !” Hermione pressed a finger to Atlas’s lips, shooting her a warning glare that the girl winced at, nodding with a solid gulp and watching silently as Hermione reached out to where the Niffler’s ear might be, suddenly pulling it back to reveal a shiny Galleon in hand. The Niffler grabbed for it with his tiny hands, rubbing the side of his head in a blatant search to find more.

Not even a Knut came from it, so he turned to look up at Hermione, handing her the pen grip as he gestured for her to give him more. Hermione complied with a small nonchalant smile on her face, this time pulling out a shiny looking jewel. The Niffler that had been in Atlas’s lap was now clambering into Hermione’s, holding its little hands out in front of her, waiting for the same and Hermione simply pulled another treasure from the depths of the Nifflers ear.

“I didn’t know you could do a reappearing charm wandless and wordlessly, Hermione,” Atlas smiled.

“I can’t.”

“Then how did you — ?”

“Muggle Magic,” Hermione grinned, casting a playful look her way and Atlas could have sworn she felt her heart skip a thousand beats.

“Muggles have magic? I — er — never knew that.”

“It’s sleight of hand.”

“Sleight of what?”

“Here,” Hermione reached over to her and Atlas tensed slightly, bewildered to find Hermione pulling away with a Galleon now pinched between her fingers, a Galleon that certainly had not been there before. “Magic.”

“But you just said –“

“Muggle Magic, Atty.”

The two Nifflers jumped up at the same time, both grabbing the Galleon free from Hermione where they continued to wrestle over it, rolling across the floor, their collected treasures spilling from their pouches and into the mud.

“Greedy little things,” Hermione chuckled but Atlas was still staring at her.

“Teach me.”

“Hmm?”

“Teach me Muggle Magic,” Atlas pleaded, staring at Hermione with a look that could only be described as star-struck.

“But you already have regular Magic.”

“So? Learning Muggle Magic would help me learn more about you!”

“Me?” Hermione smiled.

“Well…yeah…” Atlas flushed, clearing her throat. “I want to learn more about where you came from…your world, I guess. The stuff that’s made you, well…you.”

It was strange, the sudden look of embarrassment that dusted her cheeks, the nervousness she displayed as she fiddled with the bandage of her hand and the timidity she held in her voice, but Hermione found she much preferred it from the false bravado and mindless flirtatious looks Atlas usually wore. So she smiled, pinching Atlas’s cheek lightly and tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

“Ok, I’ll teach you.”