Close To Truth

“Sweet tooth,” Harry said quietly, and the stone gargoyle moved aside, revealing the staircase leading to the Headmaster’s office.

“How do you know the password?” Pansy demanded.

“I was here earlier this summer,” Harry whispered back, moving forward. “It was the password last time; I guess without many people around there really isn’t a reason to keep changing it.”

Pansy didn’t reply. When they got upstairs to the office, Harry checked one more time on the Marauder’s Map, but Professor McGonagall was in the Great Hall with the Order; there was no one in the Headmaster’s quarters. Harry opened the door, and stepped inside.

The first thing Harry noticed was that all the portraits of former Headmasters were covered with curtains. It was very odd to him, since he’d gotten almost accustomed to seeing them every time he was there; on the other hand, he could definitely understand wanting a bit of privacy now and then. He was very surprised, however, that Dumbledore’s portrait had been covered as well; he’d always thought that Dumbledore and McGonagall were close friends.

“That’s bizarre,” Pansy said, pulling her hood down, so her head seemed to float in mid-air. “Someone’s uncomfortable with prying eyes, I think.”

“Shh!” Harry hissed. “They can still hear, you know!”

“You think so?” Pansy said with a sneer. She whipped out her wand, and before Harry could stop her she cast a Hubbub Hex at the portrait walls. The blast of noise ricocheted off the wall and rebounded at Harry and Pansy, who covered their ears until it subsided. “That’s what I thought,” Pansy said (a bit loudly) once it was quiet again. “Someone’s very uncomfortable with being overheard—they’ve put Sound-Blocking Charms on those curtains.”

Harry scowled at her. “Are you trying to get us caught? No more stupid risks, understand?”

Pansy looked like she might snap back, but thought better of it. “Fine, whatever,” she muttered. “Just do whatever you came to do and let’s get the hell out of here.”

Biting back another angry retort, Harry turned and searched the shelves until he saw what he was looking for. He walked around the Headmaster’s desk and reached up, and carefully brought down…

“The Sorting Hat?” Pansy asked in disbelief. “We came all this way so you could chat with that animated dishrag?”

“No,” Harry said. “We came all this way so we could be here if Lavender and Parvati needed us. This is an extra bonus since we’re here—kind of like the Slytherin dorms will be. Now keep quiet,” he said, sitting in a chair, and placed the hat on his head.

There was a long moment of silence, and then the gravelly voice echoed in Harry’s head: “You’re the first student in centuries to wear me more than twice, Potter. Hoping I’ll re-sort you into Slytherin this time?”

Harry snorted. “Hardly,” he thought at the hat. “And I’m sure you’re aware that it hardly matters now, since Hogwarts is closed.”

“For the first time since Slytherin himself left, yes,” the Sorting Hat replied. “My warnings are falling on deaf ears, aren’t they?”

“Some of us listened,” Harry insisted. “We’re doing what we can.” He hesitated. “I need you to tell me something.”

“And what might that be?”

“What did you see in Tom Riddle’s head when you were placed on his head?”

There was silence from the Hat. “I know you remember,” Harry pushed. “You remembered me right off. Tom Riddle: what did you see?”

“In over one thousand years of Sorting students no one has ever asked me to reveal what I saw, Potter,” the Hat said, and it sounded insulted. “What students share with me is the most private of matters; I won’t break that trust.”

“You were created to help the students of Hogwarts,” Harry countered. “Salazar Slytherin can’t have wanted what Voldemort is doing.”

“You have no idea what Salazar Slytherin wanted,” The Sorting Hat stated.

“No, I don’t. But you do. Tell me.”

“I still stand by what I said about you, Potter,” the Hat replied; now it sounded amused.

“And there’s nothing in my head you can’t see,” Harry thought. The Sorting Hat seemed to contemplate that, so Harry pressed on. “You know I won’t use anything you tell me except to defeat Voldemort—you can see it. Two years ago you told us to stand together and remain strong from within. Well, that’s what we’re trying to do. The external foe you warned us of left a bit of himself in you. The more I know about him, the better chance I have of defeating him.”

“I knew your thirst to prove yourself would take you far,” the Hat said with a dry chuckle.

“You also said I’d do well in Slytherin,” Harry shot back. “It was a test, wasn’t it?”

“You are a bright boy,” the Hat wheezed, confirming Harry’s suspicion. “You aren’t who you are now because of where you were placed, Potter...nor were you placed because of who you are. It all comes down to—”

“Choice,” Harry finished. “I chose who I am.”

“The Sorting doesn’t affect what’s already in your heart,” the Hat replied.

Harry smirked. “That means you’re pretty unnecessary, doesn’t it?”

The Hat gave kind of a mental shrug. “If you like.”

Neither of them said anything for a moment. Then Harry got tired of waiting; “So—”

“Tom Riddle,” the Hat said. “I saw much in him that I saw in you, you know.”

Harry ignored that. “So was he Sorted in a heartbeat, like Draco Malfoy was? Did he threaten you if you didn’t place him in Slytherin—”

Harry was interrupted by another wheezy chuckle. “I can see you have a long way to go before you understand Tom Marvolo Riddle, Potter. He was more uncertain where he wanted to be placed than you were.”

“He…What?” Harry said dumbly.

“Riddle knew little of our world when he arrived at Hogwarts, and nothing at all of the Four who made me,” the Hat said. “Until I sang my song that year, he’d never heard of them. Even then, he was torn when he arrived; he valued ambition and power, yes, but he also treasured intelligence, and had a somewhat romantic view of bravery—as many children do—so more than one House appealed to him. When I was placed on his head he was slightly favoring Ravenclaw, followed by Slytherin and then very closely by Gryffindor.”

“He didn’t know he was descended from Slytherin until later,” Harry mused. “And I bet he got a big dose of Pureblood superiority from his Slytherin chums.” The idea of Tom Riddle as a Ravenclaw was almost too bizarre for Harry to comprehend. Voldemort as a Gryffindor was even stranger. “But you placed him in Slytherin,” he thought at the Hat. “Why?”

“Because it was where he belonged, Potter,” the Hat said unhelpfully. “The child of Slytherin will always have a place in that Founder’s House.”

“But why?” Harry demanded again. “I can’t believe you placed him there just because he was Slytherin’s descendant—you just told me people aren’t placed because of who they are! What made Slytherin a better fit for Riddle?”

The hat didn’t answer immediately, but Harry waited patiently. “Ambition,” it said finally. “Riddle’s desire to be more than he was consumed him, and the secret he sought most desperately would be better found within Slytherin.”

“And what secret did he seek most desperately?” Harry asked, his heart racing.

“Immortality.”

*****

I felt sorry for her when we got here, Parvati thought to herself dully, and guilty about what we were going to do. Now I’m just irritated. I’d probably be angry if I wasn’t so anxious.

Professor Trelawney, it seemed, was almost pathetically lonely. Most of the other teachers weren’t in residence, or working for the Order and not generally available, and Trelawney had never gotten along with most of them anyway. With no students to distract her, Trelawney moped—and drank—a lot more than usual. Parvati wondered vaguely if she was like this every summer.

And Trelawney was clinging to Parvati and Lavender, rather desperate for them to stay. Of course, they’d been some of her most enthusiastic students, so it was no wonder she was so thrilled to have them visit. But with the stolen memory burning a hole in Lavender’s pocket, Parvati felt a strong desire to get away and return to the safety of the House of Black. She suspected from the tense expression on Lavender’s face that she felt the same.

Another odd thing was that Parvati was bored. Her expression of curiosity at Trelawney’s discussion of Divination was patently false; she just couldn’t muster up enough interest to really care. Lavender wasn’t even bothering to pretend…not that Trelawney noticed, as intoxicated as she was.

A full half-hour after Lavender had successfully extracted the memory, Professor Trelawney was still rambling about the stars, the cards, and how they all pointed to the untimely death of Dumbledore and the upcoming untimely deaths of Harry Potter, his new wife, and half the staff of Hogwarts. Finally Parvati just couldn’t take it any longer. “Excuse me, I’m going to use the bathroom now,” she said. Without waiting for a reply she got up and walked around Trelawney, who kept talking at Lavender without interruption. As soon as Parvati was behind Trelawney she drew her wand, pointed it and muttered “Stupefy.”

Lavender gasped at Parvati when Professor Trelawney slumped down unconscious. “I can’t believe you did that!” she blurted out. “How could you Stun Professor Trelawney?”

“Come on, Lav, she just went on and on,” Parvati said sourly. “I saw your face, you were bored too! We’re supposed to get to the meeting point as soon as possible!”

“Yes, but…but we can’t just leave her like this,” Lavender said.

“We’ll leave a note saying we decided to let her rest once she fell asleep,” Parvati said. “We’ll Enervate her from the door, she won’t even notice.”

Lavender considered that. “Well… all right,” she said eventually. “But still… I feel bad enough about what I did without this too.”

“Yeah, I know,” Parvati agreed. “But we do still have a job to do.” She walked around to where Lavender was and gazed sadly at their former teacher. “It’s really weird,” she said softly. “There was a time when I felt like Professor Trelawney was the most amazing, gifted teacher at Hogwarts. I felt really sorry for her when she lost her job, and then had to share with Firenze. But now I don’t feel sorry for her…just pity. She seems…small. Unimportant. I don’t really know if she taught me anything.”

Lavender nodded. “I feel really ashamed to think of her that way, but I do,” she admitted. “She’s just…just pretending her way through life. It seems like a long time ago I would have liked to do what she does.”

“Do you think it means anything?” Parvati asked as they wrote a short note and collected their things.

“About Professor Trelawney? Not really,” Lavender answered. “She hasn’t changed at all in the time we’ve known her. It probably means something about us, though.”

“Yeah,” Parvati agreed. “It means that we’re not pretending to know the future any more.”

“Then I guess it’s good we’re preparing for it instead,” Lavender said, and Parvati grinned.

The two girls donned their Invisibility Cloaks, and carefully opened the door. After assuring themselves that no one was around, Parvati pointed her wand at Trelawney and said “Enervate.” Lavender pulled the door closed silently behind them just as Professor Trelawney’s eyes fluttered.

Lavender and Parvati made their way quickly through the corridors. At one point they saw Peeves bobbing along, and fortunately froze before he heard anything. He floated past them looking deeply forlorn; apparently Peeves was only happy when he had a castle-full of students to torment. Once he was out of sight, the girls quickened their pace and soon reached the Seventh floor where the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy hung. The girls walked back and forth, carefully thinking about what they needed: We need a place to hide until Harry and Pansy arrive…a place to hide so no one else can find us…

On the third pass a door appeared, and Parvati and Lavender slipped through it, pulling it shut behind them. Inside it was utterly dark, and not very large; “Ow, Lavender—that was my foot!” Parvati whispered.

“Hold on, don’t move!” Lavender said. Parvati heard her mutter “Lumos,” and she grinned when Lavender’s face lit up from the light of her wand. “Er, Parvati…where are you?” Lavender asked, glancing around.

“Right here—” Parvati said, and then she remembered she was still under the Invisibility Cloak. In fact, so was Lavender. At least most of her was; Lavender’s head was bobbing in thin air in front of her. “Hang on,” she said, and pulled her own hood off.

“Oh!” Lavender exclaimed, and then smiled. “That looks very odd, you know.”

“So does that,” Parvati retorted.

“Where are we, anyway?” Lavender asked, looking around their cramped hiding place. “It looks like…”

“Like a classroom,” Parvati said. She was right; the room about fifteen feet square, and there were old desks piled in the back. Lavender was standing in front of a dusty desk. “Why is the Room of Requirement like this? It was huge when we used it for the D.A.!”

“It must know there’s only four of us who’ll need to hide here,” Lavender guessed, holding her wand up higher so she could see what little there was. “Although why it’s not just an empty room I don’t know. I don’t really care so long as it’s safe.” She turned back to see Parvati had removed her Invisibility Cloak, and was tucking it inside her robes. “Parvati, what are you doing? We have to stay hidden!”

“Oh, I intend to,” Parvati said, and the light from Lavender’s wand glinted off her eyes mischievously. Before Lavender could react Parvati had dropped to her knees, lifted up Lavender’s robes and ducked underneath.

“You can’t be serious—” Lavender started, but quickly found out how serious Parvati was when she felt hot breath on the skin of her thigh, and slim fingers lightly rubbing the thin material of her knickers. “Parvati,” she hissed, and began to lift up her robes.

“Don’t,” Parvati’s voice replied, and a hand pulled Lavender’s robes out of her grip. “Can you see me?”

“Of course not—”

“Good,” Parvati said, and planted a kiss directly on Lavender’s center, making her twitch in surprise. “Just picture what I’m doing in your head, Lav,” she ordered, and pulled Lavender’s knickers down.

It was by far the weirdest sexual experience of Lavender’s life. Not only couldn’t she see what Parvati was doing—or about to do—she couldn’t even see herself. But Parvati’s lips sucking at her clit, Parvati’s fingers plunging rapidly in and out of her cunt, was more exciting than ever. Lavender soon gave up and dropped her wand, and clutched at the desk with both hands to keep from falling as Parvati’s tongue lapped over her thighs, her clit, her labia, her perineum… Lavender came staring into the dark, seeing nothing but feeling everything.