Chapter 130

The wall remained blank, unchanging, not a ripple in the surface as Atlas stared up at it. She paced again only for nothing to happen, her hands clenched into fists, buried deep in her pocket as she finally, after an entire hour, gave up. She had been visiting the wall any chance she got, trying to get back to that magical world, to decipher what it was doing here in Hogwarts, to no avail. The Room of Requirement seemed hell-bent on keeping her out for whatever reason. It was no big deal in the end. Hogwarts was full of mystery, her most significant concern was if it was a link to a very real place in the outside world. She hoped no Death Eaters found it and used it as a gateway into Hogwarts.

For now, she was hungry, and breakfast was calling her name.

She made her way down to the Great Hall, rubbing her sides where those werewolves had cleaved her old scars open again. Targeting the soft underbelly of her alternate form was, apparently, a common practice among werewolves, first from Remus and then from whatever mangy mutt had snagged her that night. She stopped in front of an old dirty mirror and lifted her shirt to check her stitches and found that remnants of the paste Hermione had put on them last night still remained like a thin sheet over the wounds.

“Admiring yourself?”

“Why do you always bump into me here?” Atlas huffed as she turned to look over at Daphne, who had her arms crossed and was leaning against the wall. She smiled, rolling her eyes fondly as she pushed herself off and approached.

“Because I sometimes find myself trying to figure out how the Room of Requirement works, ” she admitted as she pulled up Atlas’s shirt to examine the injuries. Atlas frowned, furrowing her brows as she watched Daphne take a sharp inhale of breath. “I saw the paper,” she said as she let go, and Atlas dropped her shirt back into place. “The Daily Prophet says there was a werebear; is that true?”

Yes. “No,” Atlas replied, and at Daphne’s dubious look, she sighed and nodded. Daphne was ok; she needed to remember that. “Yes, but I dealt with her.”

“Her?”

“Drop it, Daph,” Atlas warned, and Daphne shrugged, giving up on questioning her further.

“I’m just glad you’re ok, Ria was really worried,” Daphe said and scuffed her shoe against the floor, arms crossing tight across her chest as something twitched at her brow, a tell of sorts. Was something wrong with Astoria?

“Is she ok?”

“Hmm? Yeah, yeah…Sorry, I just worry when I’m away. I’ve spent weeks with her, and now it’s my first day back at Hogwarts, I just…” Daphne trailed off, and Atlas nodded, understanding her worry. Astoria’s condition was not something to take lightly, it made sense for Daphne to feel so much worry in this situation. “I miss her.”

They began to walk, taking a detour, the longer way to the Great Hall with fewer people to see them. Atlas still didn’t want people to know they were on talking terms, least of all friends in some way. Which reminded her – she needed to ask Daphne to keep an eye on Malfoy for Harry, he had been driving himself mad over it. They should all be back today, same as most other students: Ginny, Ron, and Harry, the latter of which she still needed to talk to.

“Anyway, you stayed with Hermione?” Daphne said, aiming to lighten the mood as she smirked and bumped her shoulder against Atlas’s. Atlas glanced at her and rolled her eyes as she tucked her hands into her pockets. Internally, Atlas debated on whether or not she should tell Daphne, “still too chicken shit to tell her how you feel? Maybe I should ask her out like I said I would.”

Atlas’s brow twitched, and she fixed Daphne with a glare. Fuck secrecy.

“We’re dating,” Atlas said firmly, and Daphne’s eyes widened, a grin splitting her cheeks. “What?”

“Nothing. I’m happy for you,” Daphne said with a soft laugh. She shook her head and smirked. “If I poked and prodded at her about kissing you before her, would she hex me?”

“Do you want to find out?” Atlas said, looking at Daphne with genuine concern for her future health.

“A little bit,” Daphne winked, sticking her tongue between her teeth coyly. Atlas shook her head, deciding not to award Daphne with a response. They kept walking. Daphne asked question after question about their relationship, and Atlas started to wish she had just bit her tongue, getting tired of skirting around their intimacy and shooting Daphne warning looks when she asked just what they had done over the Christmas break.

They neared the Great Hall and were about to split up when Atlas spotted Hermione outside of the Great Hall, signing up for the Apparition lessons that had been advertised that morning. She smiled to herself. “Hermione!”

Hermione turned, a beaming smile on her face, only for it to turn into more of a grimace when she spotted Daphne over Atlas’s shoulder. She dropped her quill back onto her necklace and approached, grasping Atlas’s wrist tightly when she was within reach. She kissed Atlas’s cheek and straightened her tie. 

“Greengrass,” Hermione nodded, and Daphne seemed to buzz with her question, Atlas shooting her warning looks, shaking her head, trying to dissuade the instigating fiend. Daphne seemed to either not see her warnings or simply not care as she waggled her fingers.

“Granger, Atlas told me you guys are dating now, congrats,” Daphne said first, and Hermione seemed to straighten a little, a smirk ticking at the corner of her mouth, self-satisfied. Atlas would have found it endearing if it wasn’t for the impending question she knew remained tingling on Daphne’s tongue. “How does it feel knowing I kissed her first?”

Hermione went very still, and Atlas let out a breath, looking away as Daphne smirked. The little shit. And then, Atlas was being pulled close, Hermione’s arm coming up around her shoulder to pull her down to her level. “Not too bad, considering I’ll be her last,” she said, and Atlas laughed softly at the impressed look on Daphne’s face. “Besides, I’ve slept with her. I think I have you beat.”

“What?”

“Hermione!” Atlas flushed as Daphne grinned. She was thoroughly blindsided but entirely amused as Hermione turned them around and marched them to the Great Hall, only allowing Atlas to stand once more when they were inside. Atlas looked down at Hermione, noticing the irritation and frustration laced in her expression. She could hear how Hermione muttered under her breath, cursing Daphne and wishing to hex her quietly.

Atlas, meanwhile, couldn’t believe how crass Hermione had been—her Hermione Jean Granger, revealing the secrets of the bedroom to Daphne Greengrass of all people. Atlas coughed and adjusted her tie, looking around at all of the familiar faces now back within the castle walls. Up ahead, she noticed how Harry straightened in his seat, standing up immediately as he practically ran towards them.

“Harry, what’s wrong –?”

He pulled her into his arms, holding her tight, his fingers digging into her back and bunching up the cloth in his grasp. Atlas glanced over at Hermione, finding the girl standing with wide eyes as Atlas slowly, tentatively returned the embrace, her hand rubbed up and down his back as she heard him take a sharp inhale of breath and pull away. 

“I’m glad you’re ok,” he blurted, his jaw clenching as he searched Atlas’s expression. “I couldn’t stop thinking about our argument. I kept thinking – what if that had been our last conversation and it was eating me up inside.”

“Harry –“

“I’m sorry. About what I said,” Harry continued, looking at the floor, “I was so worried I had lost you too.”

They stood in silence. A few wandering eyes watched the exchange, but a harsh glare from Hermione or Ginny sent them back downwards and towards their plates. Atlas looked at Harry for a long moment and reached out to ruffle his hair, her head tilted to the side. 

“It takes more than a few dogs to kill me, Harry.” Atlas smiled.

He didn’t seem amused nor appeased by her lighthearted response, and his brows twitched inward. It looked as if his teeth were aching with how hard he clenched his jaw, eyes misting slightly. Atlas sighed.

“Let’s eat. Are you hungry?” Atlas said as she hooked an arm over his shoulder and walked back to the table, Hermione plopping down beside her as Atlas started piling Harry’s favourites onto his plate with a cheerful smile, trying to coax him from his gloom. Ginny and Ron sat across from them, watching Atlas worriedly. “Come on guys, what’s with the atmosphere?”

“Atlas,” Hermione said with a soft smile, shaking her head.

“We’re glad you’re ok, mate,” Ron said with a short cough and went slowly back to his food. “Mum was worrying herself sick. Moody came and told us what happened before it was in the news, Mum saw the state of his clothes and assumed the worst.”

“His clothes?” Atlas asked as Hermione placed a piece of toast, slathered with strawberry jam, on her plate. 

“There was blood on him,” Ginny said.

“Oh,” Atlas murmured as she bit into her toast and chewed. The table settled into tense silence, those surrounding remained quiet whilst the rest of the hall buzzed with lively chatter. Students bragged about their Christmas, talking about their presents and places they had been – others talked about the latest gossip, all meaningless chatter used to fill the void of silence. Hermione continued silently preparing Atlas some toast, stacking it on her plate for her as everyone ate.

Under the table, Atlas bumped Harry’s foot with her own, shooting him a small smile that he reciprocated slowly. She could see the dark circles under his eyes, the way his hair poked up at odd angles. He hadn’t been sleeping well. 

“Atlas! Atlas, is it true you fought a werebear?” Seamus patted her shoulder, his eyes wide with awe and surprise. Atlas whirled around to look at him, her throat suddenly dry, body tense as the memory of Zasha, her fate, Dumbledore’s words and their battle knocked the wind from her chest. She couldn’t help how her eyes landed on Ginny, the girl blissfully unaware, offering her a smile.

Atlas tore her eyes away, looking at Hermione who seemed just as conflicted, her eyes darting between Atlas and Ginny.

“Yes,” Atlas said with a nod, slow and lumbering. Few around them turned and began murmuring amongst one another, bringing up the topic of the latest news now, and Atlas silently wished they’d go back to bragging about gadgets and chocolate. She noticed how Hermione sent her a look, brows furrowing as the chatter droned on in the background and turned back to her toast, taking a large bite to drown out the voices with its crunch.

Later on, away from the hustle and bustle of the other students settling back into the sway of their classes, Atlas and Hermione moved around each other in silence, getting ready for their classes. Atlas took off her t-shirt, pulling it off over her head when soft fingertips grazed over her sides, whispering a tentative touch. Hermione frowned, brows furrowing as Atlas pulled on her school shirt and allowed her to do up her buttons.

“Are you going to tell her?” Hermione asked as she reached the final button and smoothed out Atlas’s collar.

“Who?” Atlas replied, feigning ignorance. She hoped Hermione would drop it and not bring up the turbulent feelings making a mess of her mind. How she would tell Ginny what had happened to Zasha – what was happening possibly right in this very moment.

“Don’t play dumb because I know you’re not,” Hermione said warningly.

“I didn’t know you had a crush on me for three years.”

“Atlas.”

“…I don’t know,” Atlas said, her throat clicking from how hard she swallowed. “Does she need to know?”

“If something happened to you, something major and Harry knew but didn’t tell me, I’d be upset Atlas. Hurt,” Hermione said, doing that thing with her eyebrows that Atlas couldn’t stand, it made her resolve falter and posture soften. Her hands settled on Hermione’s hips and squeezed softly. 

“Remus stayed at the Burrow over Christmas,” Atlas said, remembering how Ron had mentioned he seemed haggard and worse for wear recently, it probably had something to do with Zasha now that Atlas thought about it. “He might’ve told her.”

“If he had don’t you think she’d be asking you about it right this second?”

Right.

“I think she has a right to know, Atlas,” Hermione said softly, reaching up to cup Atlas’s cheek. Atlas leaned into the tender touch, pressing a soft kiss to the inner flesh of Hermione’s wrist and nodding slowly. She did, Atlas knew Ginny deserved to know. Not hearing from Zasha since the summer had taken its toll on Ginny, she knew it had, ever since Zasha had told her to move on. But Ginny was stubborn, she couldn’t let go of something if she knew the thing she held onto didn’t want to let go either. “Tell her…please.”

“I will…” Atlas acquiesced, “I just have to figure out how.”

Dumbledore had returned from whatever excursion he had been on since their last meeting, and, of course, Harry was summoned to his office to review another memory, this one took longer than any other. Atlas had fallen asleep against Hermione’s shoulder whilst reading a book and Ron was almost drooping into the fire, his cheek against his palm. They all lurched to attention when the portrait opened and Harry stepped through, looking befuddled but strangely alight.

A horcrux he had said. And Atlas hadn’t a clue what it was.

He told them about Morfin Gaunt, about how he’d been visited by a young Voldemort in search of his father and lineage, how Voldemort killed his father and grandparents and had Morfin take the blame. It was all very interesting, but Atlas couldn’t bring herself to really care for Morfin, he had been a pureblood fanatic, who took pleasure in the torture and mistreatment of muggles and muggle-borns. She didn’t care if he had rotted in that cell for someone else’s crimes, as long as he was away.

“Horcruxes…Horcruxes…I’ve never heard of them,” Hermione said, looking quite gloomy.

“You haven’t?” Harry asked, frowning as he crossed his arms in thought. “What about you Atlas?”

“No, doesn’t ring a bell,” she replied with a sigh.

“They must be really advanced Dark magic, or why would Voldemort have wanted to know about them? I think it’s going to be difficult to get the information, Harry, you’ll have to be very careful about how you approach Slughorn, think out a strategy…” Hermione trailed off as Atlas nodded along. She was glad Dumbledore hadn’t asked this of her, she had a feeling she’d rather not know what a Horcrux was.

“He wants Atlas to help.”

“What?” Atlas said and straightened up from where she leaned against Hermione’s side, “How?”

“I don’t know,” Harry shrugged, shaking his head. “I suppose he thinks you’re disarming?”

“But I don’t know Slughorn, I haven’t been allowing him to collect me as Dumbledore asked,” Atlas argued, sighing as she realised maybe she should have listened to Dumbledore’s request and gotten to know Slughorn at the beginning of the year. But she shook her head. No, she told herself she wasn’t going to blindly follow Dumbledore’s every word and that’s what she had done. She had to stick by it despite the predicament she had found herself in. “I’m sorry, Harry, I don’t think I can help you here.”

“It’ll be fine,” Ron said through a yawn as he looked at Harry and Atlas, “He loves you guys. Won’t refuse you anything, will he? Not his two little Potions Princes or…Princesses? Look, just hang back after class tomorrow and ask him.”

Atlas, however, knew it wasn’t going to be as easy as that.

Potions was a lesson that Atlas, of course, excelled in, and, thanks to the ‘Half-Blood Prince’, Harry did too. So buttering up Slughorn should have been easy, until Golpalott’s Third Law. They had to create an antidote to a selected poison using this law, a process that was specific to the ingredients used in the poison and the effects they caused when combined together. It was advanced stuff. NEWT level, and, unfortunately, Harry’s handy helper didn’t seem to have an answer for him despite the guidance Hermione had already offered.

“Find what they have in common,” Atlas whispered over at Harry despite how Hermione told her not to. “Oh come on, Mi, I can’t leave him to make a twat of himself.”

“He can ask the Prince for help,” Hermione huffed. Hermione hated that book. A cheats guide, she’d mutter and Atlas sighed, shooting Harry a sorry look as she poured her phial into her cauldron and muttered the revealing spell under her breath.

Harry seemed to flush to the roots of his hair as he started to realise that his reputation as the best potion-maker in the class was crashing around his ears. He watched Atlas walk away over to the shelves and begin the collection of ingredients for her antidote, looking at her listlessly. She couldn’t help but feel bad and looked at his cauldron, discretely pointing to certain shelves when Hermione wasn’t looking.

Atlas had chosen a fairly difficult one, a strong paralytic that could only be combated with fairly pricey ingredients, the most difficult part would be combatting the basilisk venom paired with a rooster feather. On its own, basilisk venom is poisonous but paired with a rooster’s feather, it weakens the venom into a standard paralytic. A mighty strong one too when mixed with a few other nonsensical ingredients, you’d find yourself passing out from a lick and being paralysed for months maybe even years if one had a fairly weak disposition.

The first part of the antidote was simple enough, Atlas stared into her dark green-looking potion, grimacing at the smell of burnt hair as she waited for the split second it shimmered just so and then dropped in the sack of a spider egg, she’d have to wait a moment before adding anything else, giving the strings of the sack long enough to dissolve. So she looked over at Hermione, looking into her potion over her shoulder.

“What am I missing?” Hermione muttered to herself.

“What’s the poison?” Atlas asked and Hermione subtly leaned back into her, shaking her head.

“Angel’s trumpet.”

“Hmm, you’ve managed to combat the Angel’s Trumpet combined with the rosemary, but remember, Angel’s Trumpet induces hysteria,” Atlas said and smiled, pinching her hip, “an ingredient to perhaps…calm you down?”

“Of course!” Hermione said and turned, almost running over to the ingredients wall. Atlas smiled and walked over to the closet in the back, knowing it housed the rare ingredients at the class’s disposal, she shimmied her way into the back, standing on a stool to reach and look through the top shelves before finding it nestled in an ancient-looking box. Pheonix tears.

That’s when Harry came barging in shuffling through boxes and moving through stacks of impressive ingredients, Atlas clutched the phial in hand and stepped down, looking at him with wide curious eyes. He didn’t need anything from the storeroom as far as she was aware. She wondered what he could be doing as she left the closet and returned to her potion, there, she dropped in a single tear and began to stir until the liquid went a milky white.

It was finished.

“Two minutes left, everyone!” Slughorn called as he walked around and gave every cauldron a passing glance, he grinned at Atlas, patting her shoulder before moving over to Harry’s unmanned station and quickly turning his nose at the smell of rotten eggs. 

Hermione was still trying to find lavender sprigs on the ingredients wall, unfortunately, she failed to realise they were on the top shelf, an odd place to put such a common ingredient. Atlas walked over and reached up for it, grimacing when it pulled at her side but curling her fingers around a bunch nonetheless, “quickly,” Atlas said as she handed them to Hermione who beamed at her and ran back to her cauldron to try and mix up the antidote in the mere seconds she had left.

“Time’s…UP!” Slughorn called out genially a moment later, Hermione’s potion clouding over, probably ten minutes off of being brewed. “Well, let’s see how you’ve done! Blaise…what have you got for me?”

Slowly, Slughorn moved around the room, he looked into each person’s cauldron, turning his nose away from anything particularly putrid. Nobody apart from Atlas had completed their task. Hermione had been close and Atlas wondered if she should stall Slughorn long enough for the potion to finish brewing, but unfortunately, she was the first he stopped at their table.

“Well done Miss Granger, I see your potion is coming along but in the future, you’ll have to be much, much, quicker,” Slughorn smiled and offered her ten points to Gryffindor before moving on to Ron, who seemed to have given up on his attempt and turned away. Atlas shot Hermione a proud look, winking sneakily as Slughorn moved to her cauldron and gave it a whiff. “Very good!”

“Thank you, sir,” Atlas nodded and listened as he praised her abilities to the class, she felt a thrill of satisfaction seeing Malfoy’s face turn even uglier and grinned over at Daphne who sent her a discrete thumbs up.

“And you, Harry,” Slughorn said, and Atlas glanced over. “What have you got to show me?”

She watched quietly as Harry hesitantly held out a bezoar stone and Atlas stared at it, a flicker of something close to annoyance ticking at her brow, she wasn’t one to get jealous nor annoyed when someone was academically better than her, she really wasn’t. But this was something else. Atlas didn’t even want Slughorn’s attention and even she found herself tutting under her breath at Harry’s sheer cheek.

“You’ve got a nerve, boy!” he boomed, taking the bezoar and holding it up so that the class could see it. “Oh, you’re like your mother…well, I can’t fault you – a bezoar would certainly act as an antidote to all these potions!”

Hermione, who had a smudge of soot on her nose, looked livid, her fists clenched as she glared at Harry. Atlas had to squeeze her hand to stop the girl from properly launching herself across the worktop to shove that bezoar where the sun doesn’t shine.

“And you thought of a bezoar all by yourself, did you, Harry?” Hermione asked through gritted teeth.

“That’s the individual spirit a real potion-maker needs!” Slughorn said happily before Harry could even part his lips. “Just like his mother, she had the same intuitive grasp of potion-making, it’s undoubtedly from Lily he gets it…yes, Harry, yes, if you’ve got a bezoar to hand, of course, that would do the trick. Although as they don’t work on everything, and are pretty rare, it’s still worth knowing how to mix antidotes…”

The bell rang.

“Time to pack up!” Slughorn announced. “And an extra ten points to Gryffindor for sheer cheek!”

He waddled away and Atlas was torn between lingering to see how Harry wanted to ask Slughorn about what Dumbledore had tasked him with and chasing after her girlfriend who looked like a raging inferno. She chose the latter, shooting Harry a sorry look as she grabbed her bag and ran out after Hermione, slipping through the throngs of students.

Determined to catch Hermione before she could stand on anyone’s toes, she pushed forward and grabbed Hermione’s hand, following her back towards Gryffindor Tower where she was sure her very mature, very level-headed girlfriend would sit back and let it go. If only. Hermione was livid as they stepped into their dorm room, ranting and murmuring about ‘sheer cheek’ and ‘that blasted book’, Atlas watched with a small wry smile.

“Hermione, it’s fine. A bezoar stone isn’t technically wrong,” Atlas tried, but she held her hands up when Hermione scowled as she whirled around on her.

“But he didn’t come to his own conclusion and it wasn’t even the task of the class!” Hermione shouted and huffed as she slumped down on the edge of their bed, Atlas took a seat next to her. “And you did it all on your own but all you got was a pat on the back. You’ve cured Blood curses Atlas.”

“I’m aware.”

“I just wish someone would give you the acknowledgement you deserve!”

“Hermione, I’ve been learning all my life. I went through the Hogwarts curriculum as soon as I could do magic. Professors’ raised me, so it’s to be expected that I’d be this good. It’d be odd if I didn’t know how to brew a proper potion,” Atlas chuckled softly as she kissed Hermione’s forehead. “Besides, academic praise is your thing.”

“Yes, well…” Hermione trailed off and sighed. “When you dedicate all of your free time to studying and learning but someone surpasses you through no merit of their own, it’s…annoying.”

“I get that,” Atlas murmured, “But Harry needs to get in Slughorn’s good graces in order to get his true memory.”

“I know…” Hermione nodded and stood, “speaking of, I haven’t found anything on Horcruxes…”

“Have you looked in the restricted section?” 

“My request is pending, Madam Pince has been told to be thorough when allowing students access to the restricted section,” Hermione said as she placed her hand on her hips and glanced back at Atlas, “and you’ve been on her radar ever since you asked her about Obscurials so you can’t ask.”

“Maybe she’s forgotten?”

“Atlas, Madam Pince would never forget a student asking about a restricted book she had to physically look for, plus it sent you to Dumbledore’s office,” Hermione said and Atlas nodded. That was true. “She likes you but she’d probably be even more thorough with your request.”

“You’re right,” Atlas conceded and stood, approaching Hermione. “So we have to wait?”

“We have to wait,” Hermione repeated and brought her thumb to her mouth, biting the nail. “Though it’s bugging me.”

“What is?”

“A powerful wizard like Dumbledore must know what a Horcrux is…why wouldn’t he just tell Harry what it is he’s facing?” She muttered and Atlas frowned, brows twitching as she brushed some hair out of Hermione’s face and cupped her cheek.

“For the same reasons he won’t give me the answers to my questions…he wants us to figure it out for ourselves, to learn,” Atlas said and her jaw clenched, pressing their foreheads together, “even if it would make our lives easier, the solutions quicker to reach. I suppose he thinks there’s no point in handing someone an answer and robbing them of a chance to grow, even if you get hurt in the process.”

“There’s nothing wrong with allowing someone to come to their own conclusions but it seems excessive,” Hermione said and Atlas chuckled. She nodded and sighed, breathing Hermione in as she hugged her tightly. “I guess I’ll just have to look harder.”

“Don’t wear yourself out.”

“I won’t.”

Harry had not gotten Slughorn to break and, in fact, had possibly driven a wedge between them far larger than there ever had been, neither Ron nor Hermione was sympathetic, Ron was lamenting over not being given a Bezoar stone too whilst Hermione was still a little bitter at being bested by Harry once again. Atlas, on the other hand, offered some sympathies and suggested he let the topic go, for now, lul Slughorn into a false sense of security.

It worked and soon Slughorn went back to his usual jovial self, treating Harry as he had always done though seeming to unconsciously favour Atlas more for her potions prowess in endeavours that could not be solved by Harry’s book. Harry suggested she try and ask him next, take turns testing the waters but Atlas wasn’t so sure, she didn’t think Slughorn would be so simple as to give up a memory he had gone through the trouble of altering. Not only that but he seemed to run from class after every lesson, cancelled all of his dinner parties and never found himself lingering in the Great Hall at meals. It was nearly impossible to get him alone without seeking him out.

Eventually, Hermione acquired permission to enter the restricted section but had, for the first time, found nothing, a few vague warnings of the dangers of a Horcrux but none specifically stating what it pertained to. She was in bits, utterly blindsided by the library’s failure and ended up at a loss. Figuring out what a Horcrux was would have to wait, as would convincing Slughorn to give up his darkest most closely kept secret. This left them at a stalemate.

Well, it left Atlas at a stalemate.

With February’s arrival, the sixth years would be taught their first Apparition lessons and as she already knew how to Apparate thanks to her summer with Moody, that left her alone whilst Harry, Ron and Hermione attended the lectures. 

So she requested visitation of Katie, she had heard her condition had worsened over the holidays but was slowly improving once again thankfully and thought it’d be nice to visit her again. Tell her about Hermione, winning that Quidditch match and everything that’s happened since.

Only, it was a no. An instant no. Minerva wouldn’t allow it but Atlas pushed back a little, suggesting an Auror accompany her or something but she was still met with a firm resounding no.

“She spent Christmas alone.”

“You spent Christmas covered in stitches.”

“She’s my friend, Minerva,” Atlas tried again, stepping in front of Minerva to stop her from leaving, she was about to oversee another Apparition lesson with the sixth-years. Minerva seemed taken aback by Atlas’s tone and suddenly looked deadly serious.

“Atlas I am not allowing you to leave Hogwarts grounds, end of discussion. I am your guardian, your carer, you will not go anywhere without my say. You are in far too much danger to leave these halls, understand? Relatives of quite a number of students have been going missing, it would be foolish to practically hand yourself over to the Death Eaters and I am sure Katie Bell would rather you stay safe and sound,” Minerva said, her jowls shaking with emotion. “And it is Professor McGonagall, not Minerva.”

“Minnie -“

“Ten points from Gryffindor,” Minerva said and Atlas’s eyes widened, she took a step back as Minerva looked at her, expression both fearful and firm as if she was clutching onto Atlas, begging her to listen just this once. “If you are so burdened with free time, you are not nearly doing enough studying.”

“Yes, Professor McGonagall,” Atlas said quietly and retreated, her tail practically tucked between her legs as she lumbered back up to Gryffindor Tower, Minerva watched her go, hands clasped together tightly in front of her as she shook her head and quickly swivelled on her heel, dress billowing as she stormed off in the direction of the Great Hall.

Atlas did not study, she pulled off her shirt and kicked off her trousers, slumping into bed and groaning, the cool fabric was nice against her heated skin, soft against the injuries. She reached out to fiddle with her two lion dolls, the one Hermione had bought and the other charred one she had been given in that mysterious egg. Minnie had never been so harsh before, Atlas had stepped out of line in some way but did she have to take ten points? From her own house too, maybe Atlas should apologise, she didn’t make it easy on Minnie, always getting into trouble.

She sighed and rolled onto her front, hugging her pillow to her face and closing her eyes.

The door slammed open and Atlas sprung upright, blinking blearily as she brought her pillow to her chest in fright only to realise it was only Hermione, she moved to dramatically whine, ready to lament over her godmother’s harsh treatment only to find Hermione staring at her, arms full of chocolate. “What’s that?”

“Valentine’s Day chocolates,” Hermione huffed and Atlas bristled, brows furrowing as she stood. “For you, idiot, some girls thought it best to ask me to bring it to you at my Apparition’s class.”

“Oh,” Atlas relaxed a little as she took some from Hermione’s arms and fiddled with the boxes, “It’s not even Valentine yet.”

“Maybe they’re hoping whatever love potion they’ve stuffed inside will work in time for Friday,” Hermione said bitterly and Atlas rolled her eyes, grinning as she popped open a lid and looked at the delicately arranged chocolates.

“Should I try one?”

“Don’t annoy me Atlas.”

“Sorry,” Atlas chuckled as she tossed the boxes into the bin and pulled Hermione into her arms, smiling when Hermione’s hands splayed flat across the brand on her back and traced the letters with cold fingers. “You doing anything for valentines?”

“I don’t know, are we?”

“We could skip class,” Atlas murmured into her ear and Hermione feigned contemplation before pinching Atlas’s cheek and shooting her a very serious look, “I’m joking. We can’t go to Hogsmeade, Minnie and I just had a whole disagreement over me leaving Hogwarts.”

“You had a disagreement?” Hermione asked, cupping Atlas’s cheeks, her brows furrowing, “is everything ok?”

“It was only small…I just pushed my luck asking to see Katie,” Atlas said with a shrug and then smirked. “How about…a no homework afternoon, we can…go to the prefects’ bathroom? The one with the bathtub, not the showers.”

“Two people can’t go in at once,” Hermione huffed, a little pink to her cheeks.

“Bummer.”

“Be serious,” Hermione scolded, looking at Atlas in genuine question, “what are we doing for Valentines?”

“Curl up in bed and read a book?” Atlas suggested, tilting her head to the side as she sighed, “I’m not sure honey, I can’t leave Hogwarts grounds and we have classes – I want it to be special but –“

“A book and your company sound lovely.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.”