White Heather for Protection

Hunkering with House Elves

Hallowe'en. It was always this day. Against her better judgment, Heather had again been persuaded to attend the Feast - this time by Fred and George. If she'd stayed in her room in the dungeons, perhaps she'd have been able to prevent Hadrian from encountering such a sight.

Someone, or something, had petrified Mrs Norris. Words had been scrawled onto the wall in what seemed to be blood.

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED

ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE

Now everyone was looking accusingly at her brother - as if he had anything to do with it except its discovery. Really, Hadrian wasn't even a Slytherin. He couldn't possibly have opened the Chamber of Secrets. Of course, because it was the logical conclusion, no one else thought so.

Heather also recognised that gleam in her brother's eyes. That damnable look that spoke of curiosity of an unsolved mystery. After spending the whole of last year looking at it, she was quite familiar now. Hadrian would snoop around relentlessly until he puzzled out this new conundrum.

He and his friends had asked for help brewing Polyjuice Potion, for goodness sake! Heather had agreed to help, if only to prevent them from messing up the finicky potion themselves. She knew how tenacious her brother was. He would have found the recipe elsewhere on his own and attempted to brew it himself.

She'd extracted a promise from him to use it carefully though. What she hadn't done was ask him what he needed it for. She didn't think her heart could take it.

~~~

The first Quidditch match of the term was Lions versus Snakes again. She had always wondered why this was so. Pitting the two rivals against each other for one of the most anticipated matches of the season only engendered more hatred.

Oddly enough, Heather was sitting in the stands during the match. She wasn't on the team this year - not necessarily by choice, but she wasn't much bothered by it. She finally got her reason to quit the team without garnering even more disdain from her housemates and, more importantly, disappointing Hadrian. She really had much more important things on her plate. Between her regular schoolwork, personal research and correspondence with Gringotts, Quidditch wasn't really a priority.

It was a funny story, really.

When Heather had heard rumours of Lucius Malfoy ordering new brooms - Nimbus 2001s! - for the Slytherin Quidditch team, she knew that it wasn't for altruistic purposes. It came as no surprise when Draco Malfoy declared himself the new seeker. His resentment for her brother was no secret. To her knowledge, Hadrian hadn't done anything to propagate such negativity. Other than being a Gryff.

So Heather had heeded Professor Snape's veiled prompting to forfeit her position. Mr Malfoy was on the Board of Hogwarts Governors and a very well-established politician. The Professor could hardly have spurned his generous donation and minor request. She refused to throw the try-out though - she had more self-respect than that. She simply elected to skip it.

Any lingering reluctance on Heather's part had been quelled by Professor Snape's obvious contempt at having to accommodate the spoilt purebloods. It was apparent that he would rather her remain on the team.

Rightly so, of course. Malfoy, while an adequate flier, didn't hold a candle to her Hadrian. Everyone could see it. Rian was flying circles around the frustrated blond. Besides matches against Heather herself, Rian caught the snitch every time.

His unique flying style allowed him to dodge bludgers easily. He weaved around players and projectiles alike, easily evading any collisions. Even if there was a wild bludger that seemed to be attracted to him like thestrals to raw meat. Wait a minute...