Spectre: The Dark Riddles #1

9: Horned Serpent

"[Horned Serpents] were regarded as intelligent, with fierce eyes. These serpents emitted a low, musical note to sound danger. Shavings from its horn can be used as wand cores. Its jewel was said to grant powers of invisibility and flight, thus making it the most sought after element of the species."

--from the textbook Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Newt Scamander, 2017 Edition

***

The first thing I notice about the Gryffindor Common Room is that it's much cleaner than mine. The future herbologists in my House have a bad habit of dragging in soil and dirt on their hands and shoes, ensuring that the Hufflepuff Common Room is always covered in a thin layer of dirt. Early Saturday evening, blazing heat dances inside the hearth. Several Gryffindors lounge on the couches and armchairs, studying or talking with friends. Most of the furniture and throw blankets are deep scarlet. It's comfortable, but my common room will always be my favorite.

"If you're trespassing, Hufflepuff, you better have a good reason." The boy's voice echoes around the room and twenty heads turn in my direction. The boy—tall, lanky, ginger—is dressed in a green and brown suit. He rises from where he had been talking to younger students by the fire. He has to be a Seventh Year. He's familiar, but I can't recall his name.

"Um..." I switch from foot to foot, hating the attention. "I'm looking for Rowena Black. Is she here?"

He meanders towards me with all the ease and grace of a young man who has not only grown used to being the center of attention but enjoys it. "Who's asking?"

"Her best friend."

He stops three feet away from me. "That's impossible."

I frown. "Why?"

"Because I'm her best friend. Me and my brother. There's no one she's closer to than us."

My eyebrows shoot up. "You're one of the Weasley twins?"

Rowena had mentioned them once, when we met halfway through Fifth Year. I used to know them, she said with all the sorrow and longing that comes from an ended friendship that left scars in its wake. She said they stopped talking to her once they dropped out of Hogwarts. They'd had enough of Umbridge and Rowena, apparently.

I asked what had caused the fall out.

She never told me.

Months later, when I got tired of hearing their legacy be passed around the school in awed voices and nostalgic stares, I asked her what they had really been like. I had a feeling she was the only one who truly knew those boys, and not just the version they put on display for the world.

George... she had started, then rung out her hands. Took a breath. Tried again. George laid laughter over the dark parts of my soul. He made me cry from laughing so hard when I didn't even want to move. And he did it with defiance, with heart, with hysteria, with reckless abandon, any way that he could.

It was a long time before she spoke again. She could not look me in the eyes when she said, But Fred...

Fred.

He was the sun. He would walk into any room, and they'd all be watching him. He was the center of... everything. They worshipped him, every last person. He was a modern-day god of mischief and mayhem and mistakes.

She never talked about the Weasley twins again, and I knew better than to ask.

"George Weasley, at your service." He extends his hand for me to take. I shake it, surprised at how miniscule my fingers look in his. "You got a name, Hufflepuff?"