Certain Dark Things || Book Four

xxvi. from the air, from the depths

Harriet stood and squinted at herself in the bathroom mirror for a long time.

The face peering back from the fogged glass was thin with a narrow nose and eerily green eyes. Her wet hair stuck to her skin, and the fringe curled over her brow, a mess of tangles and wild cowlicks. Spots of acne dotted her chin and forehead here and there, and her scar crept spider-like from her skinny shoulder, ropey white lines skittering over her chest, neck, and jaw.

Her ears didn't stick out too far, and she had a stubborn set to her jaw. Her brows lowered sharply over her eyes, and her teeth were fairly unremarkable; white but slightly uneven, her lips somewhat pale and chapped by the cooling weather. The residents of Privet Drive used to say she had a shifty face, and Harriet never really understood what they meant until she started school.

An impatient knock sounded on the closed door. "Are you ever going to come out of there? We're going to be late!"

"Gimme another minute."

"You said that five minutes ago!"

"Well, give me five more then."

"Honestly!" Footsteps thumped away from the entrance.

Harriet studied the things cluttering the counter. Each girl in their year had a shelf allotted for their bath things; Pansy had more junk than anyone, little bottles and vials and packets always overflowing across the stone surface around the sinks. Katherine Runcorn had her own standing mirror with a dozen reflective bits that looked like something out of Divinations, and Elara had an embroidered black valise hiding her medical potions.

Harriet's mouth flattened into a tight line as she studied her own shelf, which held one half-empty bottle of shampoo, a school-issued bar of soap, a little pouch for feminine products, a toothbrush and paste, and a boar-bristle brush in need of cleaning. She knew she had some other things in her trunk—a cream for her scar, some unguent against Dark magic and bruises, a potion for headaches nearing expiration—but nothing that needed to be added to her shelf.

She picked up one of Pansy's vials—a thin glass ampule about the size of Harriet's finger filled with a swirling pink-colored cream. The print on the glass proved too small for her to read, but Harriet thought the gunk might be age-proofing serum.

"She's fourteen, for Merlin's sake," she muttered, putting the vial back in place. She looked at herself in the mirror again.

In the weeks since Harriet's confrontation with the three seventh-years, she found she couldn't quite forget their words or their harsh, jeering faces. They stuck in her mind like the last bit of mess at the bottom of a scorched cauldron, and no matter how Harriet chipped away at it, the needling laughter persisted.

"Potter, you're such a freak!"

She shouldn't care what someone like bloody Squabs and her cronies thought. She didn't!

Harriet eyed her hair and the cowlicks and made an effort to flatten the worst offenders. They persisted despite the water and her best ministrations.

Glaring at her reflection, Harriet looked away, then dragged on the rest of her uniform and pushed her glasses onto her face. She fussed with the sleeves until they laid straight, and she tucked in her shirt. She did every button up to the top and tightened the tie as it was meant to be, though it felt strangling. She straightened her robes until they fell even on both sides and the folds turned at the right angles, pulled back at the collar and edge to display the barest inch of the inner lining. Finally, she clipped the brooch at the top.

She looked once more at her plain face, lacking any form of makeup or funny creams, her hair still disobedient and her expression vaguely sour. A sigh escaped Harriet as if released from the very bottom of her soul.