𝐓 𝐇 𝐄   𝐂 𝐇 𝐀 𝐌 𝐁 𝐄 𝐑   𝐎 𝐅   𝐒 𝐄 𝐂 𝐑 𝐄 𝐓 𝐒

        𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐘 had a feeling that Melody now wanted a Ford Anglia.

When he and Ron made the decision to crash one into the Whomping Willow, something told him she would probably be inspired. Two months without seeing them, and this flying vehicle was how they waltzed back into her life?

Nothing screamed "birthday wishlist" more.

Lots had transpired over the past couple months, most of which he had written to her about —a house-elf breaking into the Dursleys', getting rescued by the Weasleys, and meeting the Malfoys in Diagon Alley, among other things— but on September 1st, 1992, he didn't actually see Melody until late in the evening.

When he and Ron finally escaped Snape's office and entered the common room, there was a sudden storm of clapping. It looked as though the whole of Gryffindor House was still awake, packed onto lopsided tables and squashy armchairs, expecting them. Dozens of hands reached out to pull them inside, where screams of approval were waiting.

"Brilliant!" yelled Lee Jordan. "Motivating!"

"Good for you," said a fifth year Harry had never spoken to.

Someone was patting him on the back as though he'd just won a marathon, and Fred and George pushed their way to the front of the crowd and said together, "Why couldn't we have come in the car, eh?"

Ron was scarlet in the face, grinning embarrassedly, but over all the ruckus, Harry saw her — the one person he'd been most looking forward to.

Melody.

She was standing on the coffee table in front of the fireplace, smiling more mischievously than she ever had. She looked different, taller perhaps, but her same bright grey eyes bore around the crowd until finally, finally, they met Harry's.

"What an entrance!" she shouted at once. With a graceful leap, she bounded down to him from her perch on the table. "Flying a car right into the Whomping Willow! People'll be talking about that one for years! I've never been prouder!"

"Er — thanks," Harry grinned, face flushing. "Sorry for missing the feast."

"Are you joking?" she howled with laughter. "This is fifty times better than any boring meal! I barely even have words, I'm so impressed — Oh!" A look of realization suddenly dawned her face, and she seized his arm amid the chaos of the room. "Meet me down here with the Cloak at midnight," she whispered into his ear. "We've got a tradition to keep up."

She pulled away from him, beaming, but he furrowed his brows in confusion. "What do you mean?"

Melody looked as though he had just slapped her across the face. "The Tower, you fool."

The Tower . . . The Tower! The Astronomy Tower!

He was just about to nod his head in long-overdue understanding, but Melody was already looking past him.

"Better tell Ron to get upstairs," she muttered.

Harry cast a look over to where was staring.

It was Percy, visible over the heads of some excited first years. He seemed to be trying to get near enough to start telling them off. Harry nudged Ron in the ribs and nodded in Percy's direction. Ron got the point at once.

"Got to get upstairs — bit tired," he said to Fred and George. Immediately, the two of them started pushing their way toward the door on the other side of the room, which led to the dormitories.

"Night," Harry called back to Melody, who winked subtly and started to approach Oliver Wood.

He and Ron managed to get to the other side of the common room, still having their backs slapped, and gained the peace of the staircase. They hurried up it, right to the top, and at last reached the door of their old dormitory, which now had a sign on it saying SECOND YEARS. They entered the familiar, circular room, with its five four-posters hung with red velvet and its high, narrow windows. Their trunks had been brought up for them and stood at the ends of their beds.

Ron grinned guiltily at Harry. "I know I shouldn't've enjoyed that or anything, but—"

The dormitory door flew open, and in came the other second year Gryffindor boys.

"Unbelievable!" beamed Seamus.

"Cool," said Dean.

"Amazing," said Neville, awestruck.

Harry couldn't help it. He grinned, too.

By a quarter past twelve, though, he was grinning at something else, or someone else— atop the Astronomy Tower, Melody was Transfiguring a spare quill into a Liquorice Wand, then back again.

"Invented the spell myself," she said cheerfully. "The incantation is 'mutatio dulcis', and the wand movement," —she flicked her wrist several obscure ways— "is that."

"You're brilliant, Melody," Harry sighed into the night air.

"Thanks, Ree, you too," she responded, running a hand through her hair. "Oh — by the way, I think I'm trying out for Chaser this year."

"Really?" he turned to her. "You'll make it for sure!"

"I agree," she said plainly, sounding as though she was already a member of the team.

He smiled at her — they could attend practices together, and that meant she could help him study in accordance with the training schedule. She was staring up at the sky, however, like usual, eyes twinkling and gleaming synchronously with the stars above.

"Also," Harry began, quieter this time, "I think your grandmother hates me."

It wasn't a lie —maybe a bit of an embellishment, but still— he had never seen Professor McGonagall more upset than she had been when he and Ron crashed into the Whomping Willow.

Melody just laughed, white teeth shining bright: "She hates me sometimes, too — like when she calls me 'Melody Rose'. That's how you know it's bad."

Harry snorted, and turned away from her. "Thanks, I feel much better now."

"Oh, don't worry so much," she said lightly. "She's just tightly wound."

He leaned back, inhaling the clean, starry, air. "I still can't believe she's related to you."

Melody brandished the Liquorice Wand/Quill, which was now a vivid, striking red — talent that could only be inherited from Minerva McGonagall. "Well, you better start believing it."

Harry grinned over at her, the stillness of the night beginning to sink in — it had been a tumultuous, quick day full of surprises, and there was nobody he'd rather end it with.

Melody seemed to have the same inclination, and she lazily slung her arm around his shoulders.

"The castle's so boring when I'm all by myself, even though I've got her, Dumbledore, and Hagrid," she breathed, voice dripping with regret and loneliness. "I missed you."

And in that moment, Harry wished, with all his heart, that he could speak the language of the stars.

He would've asked them to illuminate Melody's path; to abolish the darkness invading her mind; to rip the fears off her faith.

Just months prior, he had promised her he'd always come back, until the end— and here they were, reunited, even though he almost got himself expelled in the process.

She is all there ever was, a small voice in the back of his head sang. Before the mountains, before the sea, there was Melody, and she was waiting for you.

Harry faltered, missing a breath. That voice could be right, it could be wrong — but it felt so drenched in honesty; in blinding light.

He was still young, with countless things to learn and countless vows to make and countless tears to cry. How could his spirit make such absolute statements?

Oh, but you already have, the voice laughed again, And you always will, if it's for her.

Harry knew, deep down, that it spoke nothing but truth. He'd do anything if it meant making his best friend happy, and even a million life-changing promises couldn't stop him.

So he merely smiled wider, leaning into Melody's familiar sweet scent, and said:

"I missed you too."

        𝐋𝐈𝐅𝐄 took a definite upturn as soon as Melody was given her Quidditch jersey.

She was born a Chaser, so it wasn't much of a surprise when she made the Gryffindor team. Despite Malfoy being made Slytherin Seeker, she was more than confident in her abilities — Nimbus 2001s meant nothing if the players riding them weren't talented, and no description had ever fit the Slytherins more.

Malfoy definitely helped contribute to the newfound realization that blonds weren't her type, too — but all she did was step foot in Lockhart's room, and it was practically decided for her. If only Hermione hadn't been so blindsided by his sparkly teeth, perhaps Melody would've taken her along to vandalize his numerous self-portraits instead of Harry.

Although that little stunt made her grandma's infamous list, she hardly ever docked House points anymore; merely tried to contain a smile and sometimes blinked back tears.

She's seen the light, Melody joked. My humor is so brilliant, it never fails to move her deeply.

She didn't know, of course, that her grandmother's tears were summoned from a place of not joy, but familiarity, and even grieving.

Because Minerva had begun to see her daughter Mary so much in Melody that it was hard to keep the two of them seperate anymore. Intelligent, beautiful, Chaser — everything was blurring together.

Or perhaps that was just her eyes.

Melody merely skipped around the castle, oblivious to any deeper meaning of her mannerisms— but Minerva saw them, oh yes.

How she'd tilt her head when she heard something new, how she'd run a hand through her chocolatey waves when something made her happy, how she'd hide gum beneath her tongue while in class . . .

Melody was one-of-a-kind, and Minerva had always known this, but something about these little things tickled her. Maybe it's just age, she told herself, Maybe I've begun to see things funnily.

Yet there was nothing funny about it, to be frank —

Melody was Cocoa, and Cocoa was Melody.

There were just a few exceptions.

For example, Cocoa had never witnessed the opening of the Chamber of Secrets.

But Melody had.

She, Hermione, and Ron had found Harry wandering the corridors one night, speaking nonsense about a voice trying to kill someone — Melody was beginning to worry if he had been hit in the head with a Bludger.

Harry thought it wise to hurtle around the whole of the second floor, she, Ron and Hermione panting behind him, not stopping until they turned a corner into the last, deserted passage.

"Harry, what was that all about?" said Ron, wiping sweat off his face. "I couldn't hear anything . . ."

"I'll kill Fred," Melody heaved for breath. "I told him not to hit you with a Bludger unless you told on me for swapping all of Snape's cloaks with sparkly pink princess capes—"

But Hermione gave a sudden gasp, pointing down the corridor. "Look!"

Something was shining on the wall ahead. They approached slowly, squinting through the darkness. Foot-high words had been daubed on the wall between two windows, shimmering in the light cast by the flaming torches.

𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝘾𝙃𝘼𝙈𝘽𝙀𝙍 𝙊𝙁 𝙎𝙀𝘾𝙍𝙀𝙏𝙎 𝙃𝘼𝙎 𝘽𝙀𝙀𝙉 𝙊𝙋𝙀𝙉𝙀𝘿. 𝙀𝙉𝙀𝙈𝙄𝙀𝙎 𝙊𝙁 𝙏𝙃𝙀 𝙃𝙀𝙄𝙍, 𝘽𝙀𝙒𝘼𝙍𝙀.

And within minutes, the four were whisked away to Lockhart's office, ("Mine is the nearest, Headmaster!") trying to avoid each other's frightened glances.

Dumbledore took several minutes to inspect Mrs. Norris, the cat found frozen at the scene, before finally saying: "She's not dead, Argus."

"Not dead?" choked Filch, looking through his fingers at Mrs. Norris. "But why's she all — all stiff and frozen?"

"She has been Petrified," said Dumbledore ("Ah! I thought so! Wish I had been there to save her!" exclaimed Lockhart). "But how, I cannot say . . ."

"Ask him!" shrieked Filch, turning his blotched and tearstained face to Harry.

"I never touched Mrs. Norris!" Harry said loudly, seemingly aware of everyone looking at him, including all the partially vandalized Lockharts on the walls.

"If I might speak, Headmaster," said Snape from the shadows.

Melody's sense of dangerous foreboding increased; she was sure nothing Snape had to say was going to do Harry any good. He looked like a dark mockingbird in a plumage of night sky, missing his morning-dipped beak and chanting a sickly sweet song.

"Potter and his friends may have simply been in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said, a slight sneer curling his mouth as though he doubted it. "But we do have a set of suspicious circumstances here. I suggest, Headmaster, that Potter is not being entirely truthful. It might be a good idea if he were deprived of certain privileges until he is ready to tell us the whole story. I personally feel that both he and Prewett should be taken off the Gryffindor Quidditch team until they are ready to be honest."

At once, Melody dived into the dialogue like a dolphin into the endless blue abyss. This was wrong, it hadn't been Harry, and why on earth would she give up her Quidditch position? "But you don't have any proof it was him—"

"Silence, Melody," said her grandmother sharply from the side of the room.

Melody fell quiet, reading the edge in her grandma's voice; a razor into the classroom air. "Sorry," she mumbled, eyes on the ground.

Her grandma turned to Snape, without losing her frown. "Severus, I see no reason to stop them from playing Quidditch. This cat wasn't hit over the head with a broomstick. There is no evidence at all that Potter has done anything wrong."

Melody looked up— Dumbledore was giving Harry a searching look.

After a painfully long moment of cold silence, the Headmaster's gaze left Harry. "Innocent until proven guilty, Severus," he said firmly.

"My cat has been Petrified!" Filch shrieked, his eyes popping. "I want to see some punishment!"

"We will be able to cure her, Argus," said Dumbledore patiently. "Professor Sprout recently managed to procure some Mandrakes. As soon as they have reached their full size, I will have a potion made that will revive Mrs. Norris."

"I'll make it," Lockhart butted in. "I must have done it a hundred times. I could whip up a Mandrake Restorative Draught in my sleep—"

"Excuse me," said Snape icily. "But I believe I am the Potions master at this school."

There was a very awkward pause.

"You may go," Dumbledore said to Melody, Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

And they did — without looking behind them, without pausing to blink, without even glancing at each other.

They ran.

For a few days, the school could talk of little else but the attack on Mrs. Norris. Filch kept it fresh in everyone's minds by pacing the spot where she had been attacked, as though he thought the attacker might come back. Melody had seen him scrubbing the message on the wall with Mrs. Skower's All-Purpose Magical Mess Remover, but to no effect; the words still gleamed as brightly as ever on the stone. When Filch wasn't guarding the scene of the crime, he was skulking red-eyed through the corridors, lunging out at unsuspecting students and trying to put them in detention for things like "breathing loudly" and "looking happy."

Melody was trying to appear unbothered, but the situation really began to mess with her composure. She thought she had known most secrets about the school, but there was an entire Chamber dedicated to them and she had been clueless? It was embarrassing, to say the least.

That Saturday, though, dawned crisp and sunny — perfect Quidditch weather, just as she had wanted.

Eleven o'clock came around quickly, so she and Harry hurried down to the locker rooms. The team pulled on their scarlet Gryffindor robes, then sat down to listen to Wood's usual pre-match pep talk.

Melody had heard it before, tens of times — she had practically been the team mascot since she was two.

"Slytherin has better brooms than us," Wood began. "No point denying it. But we've got better people on our brooms. We've trained harder than they have, we've been flying in all weathers—" ("Too true," shuddered George. "I haven't been properly dry since August") "— and we're going to make them rue the day they let that little bit of slime, Malfoy, buy his way onto their team."

Chest heaving with emotion, Wood turned to Harry.

"It'll be down to you, Harry, to show them that a Seeker has to have something more than a rich father. Get to that Snitch before Malfoy or die trying, Harry, because we've got to win today, we've got to."

"So no pressure, Harry," sighed Melody, patting his back.

Just before they walked out to the pitch, she and the Weasley twins quickly circled around their team captain, sporting identical cheesy grins.

"Knock on Wood," they said, knocking on his Keeper armor confidently.

And then, a roar of noise greeted them; mainly cheers, because Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff were anxious to see Slytherin beaten, but the Slytherins in the crowd made their boos and hisses heard, too. Madam Hooch, asked Flint and Wood to shake hands, which they did, giving each other threatening stares and gripping much harder than was necessary.

"On my whistle," said Madam Hooch. "Three . . . two . . . one . . ."

Forty minutes later, Melody decided it was not at all the kind of match she had pictured. In her head, there had been a 300 point lead, with herself scoring at least half of the goals.

Instead, a rogue Bludger chased Harry viciously across the pitch and broke his arm, before Lockhart came along and removed all of Harry's bones to begin with.

But they did win, and Melody had scored a great deal of goals, five, so many that her grandmother gave her a celebratory hug after the match.

She hurried off to the hospital wing soon after to keep Harry company, head buzzing with post-match joy and distraction.

It seemed sweet, rushing off to be with him, but it was far too mirrored to be lovely. The situation was invariably predictable, whether she saw it or not — Melody was given a split-second of clarity; of ice cold honesty; a choice.

To stay or run?

And she was no better than those she preached against. Nobody ever stays, nobody ever stays, nobody ever stays.

No, not even Melody stayed long enough to see those familiar tears of déjà vu rolling down Minerva's cheeks.

A river of adoration, of course.

But somehow, somehow, buried beneath those deep eyes and tight composure — a stream of longing.

        𝐎𝐍 a distant island between the white winter frost and nose-diving temperatures came Harry's latest challenging revelation — he was a Parselmouth.

After an odd Duelling Club meeting, Melody, Ron, and Hermione didn't explain anything until they had dragged him all the way up to the empty Gryffindor common room. Even then, their reactions were baffling.

After roughly three and a half minutes of trying to get a word in between their audible confusion, Harry finally exclaimed: "Listen, if I hadn't told that snake not to attack Justin—"

"Oh, that's what you said to it?" interrupted Ron.

"What d'you mean?" stuttered Harry. "You were there — you heard me —"

"I heard you speaking Parseltongue," Ron said. "Snake language. You could have been saying anything — no wonder Justin panicked."

"You sounded like you were egging the snake on or something," Melody told him, eyes a deep shade of cold with worry. "It was creepy."

Harry gaped at her, speechless. "I spoke a different language? But — I didn't realize — how can I speak a language without knowing I can speak it?"

Ron shook his head. He, Melody, and Hermione were looking as though someone had died.

Harry, still blinded by a naive nature and curious mind, couldn't see what was so terrible. "D'you want to tell me what's wrong with stopping a massive snake biting off Justin's head?" he said. "What does it matter how I did it as long as Justin doesn't have to join the Headless Hunt?"

"It matters," said Hermione, speaking at last in a hushed tone, "because being able to talk to snakes was what Salazar Slytherin was famous for."

"That's why the symbol of Slytherin House is a serpent," Melody whispered, voice quavering ever-so-slightly.

Harry's mouth fell open again.

"Exactly," said Ron. "And now the whole school's going to think you're his great-great-great-great-grandson or something—"

"But I'm not!" exclaimed Harry, a white-hot panic searing in his chest which he couldn't quite explain.

"You'll find that hard to prove," said Hermione. "He lived about a thousand years ago; for all we know, you could be."

But there was no way, Harry resolved as he lay in bed that night, he just couldn't be— he had seen Colin Creevey get carried into the hospital when his bones were growing back, he had found the first message on the wall. He hadn't done any of it.

It certainly didn't contribute to his innocence, though, when he discovered Justin Finch-Fletchley lying on the floor of a dark corridor the next day. He was rigid and cold, a look of shock frozen on his face, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling.

And that wasn't all, either — next to him was Nearly Headless Nick, no longer pearly-white and transparent, but black and smoky, floating immobile and horizontal, six inches off the floor. His head was half off and his face wore an expression of shock identical to Justin's.

Then, crash — crash — crash — door after door flew open along the corridor and people flooded out. For several long minutes, there was a scene of such confusion that Justin was in danger of being squashed and people kept standing in Nearly Headless Nick. Harry found himself pinned against the wall as the teachers shouted for quiet. Professor McGonagall came running: she used her wand to set off a loud bang, which restored silence, and ordered everyone back into their classes.

Justin was carried up to the hospital wing by Professor Flitwick and Professor Sinistra of the Astronomy department, and after his particularly confusing conversation with the Headmaster, covering phoenixes and a twisted kind of truth-telling, Harry had never felt more alone.

He didn't quite know how he ended up throwing his father's Cloak over his shoulders that night, and hurrying across deserted corridors, up, up, up—

But when he emerged out onto the Astronomy Tower, hoping to try and talk to the stars, someone was already there.

"I saw you coming," Melody murmured into the silent night.

Harry froze. He was under the Invisibility Cloak— what was she talking about?

"Come on, Harry, I know you're right there," she added, holding up a dirty piece of parchment.

Harry slowly peeled the Cloak off of his body, shivering in the night. The Astronomy Tower was covered in a very thin layer of frost, he noticed, but Melody was still sitting in her usual place on the edge, feet dangling down into the air.

Breath fogging around him, he crept over to her. "How did you know I was here?"

Melody flashed the old piece of parchment again. "This, from Fred and Geroge."

"What, a hundred-year-old booklet of paper?" he scoffed, squinting to read the heading on the top — but Melody had already pulled it out of sight.

"Not remotely," she grinned. "I would tell you more, but I promised I'd keep it a secret."

"Lovely," Harry muttered.

"Calm down," she chuckled, crossing her arms in the cold. "Why are you up here? That's the real question."

Harry's stomach gave a nervous lurch. What if she thought it was odd, that he was replicating what she usually did? "I — I wanted to talk to the stars," he admitted tensely.

"Oh!" Melody exclaimed at once. Her eyes sparkled suddenly, like they so often did when she thought of her cosmic guardians. "I'll go, then, if you want to be alone—"

"No!" Harry broke in, heart skipping at the thought. "That's just it, I don't want to be alone."

In the vague light of the moon, he saw her expression soften into an enchantment of understanding.

"I'll stay with you, then," she murmured, slinging her arm around his shivering shoulders like she had on the very first night of term. "Everything will be alright."

And she did stay, despite how many times she said that nobody ever would— Melody stayed with Harry until their toes were frozen and their cheeks were rosy, without making him rehash a single tragedy, all to convince him that everything would be alright.

When they finally ducked under the Cloak and wandered back to the common room at midnight, worries subjugated and faint heartbeats synchronized, he began to believe her.

Maybe it would be.

        𝐓𝐇𝐄 morning of February fourteenth brought Lockhart's latest morale-booster, and it proved as flamboyant as ever, but certainly entertaining — to Melody, at least.

She hadn't gotten much sleep the night before due to a late-running Quidditch practice and a custom decoration of Snape's classroom for the special occasion ("I'm not repeating myself, I decorated his office in pink hearts a few years ago, this is way better!"), so she had been looking forward to a quiet breakfast.

Struggling to blink, she hurried down to the Great Hall, a bit behind schedule — but for a moment, she thought that she'd walked through the wrong doors.

The walls were all covered with large, lurid pink flowers, and heart-shaped confetti was falling in a merciless downpour from the pale blue ceiling.

Melody, grinning despite herself, went over to the Gryffindor table, where Ron was sitting looking sickened, Harry was shaking his head in disappointment, and Hermione seemed to have been overcome with giggles.

"What happened in here?" she asked, sitting down beside Harry and brushing confetti off of his shoulder.

Ron pointed to the teachers' table, apparently too disgusted to speak. Lockhart, wearing ornate pink robes to match the decorations, was waving for silence. The teachers on either side of him were looking stony-faced. There was a muscle going in her grandmother's cheek, but to Melody's delight, Snape's skin was tinted a very bright pink.

"Your doing?" wondered Harry, following her gaze. "It really brings out his eyes."

"That's what I thought, too," she responded, beaming. "Stevenson's Smoke Bombs, in the color Pink Flamingo— I made George buy out the entirety of Zonko's stock."

"Happy Valentine's Day!" Lockhart shouted over the chatter. "And may I thank the forty-six people who have so far sent me cards! Yes, I have taken the liberty of arranging this little surprise for you all — and it doesn't end here!"

Lockhart clapped his hands and through the doors to the entrance hall marched a dozen surly-looking dwarfs. Not just any dwarfs, however — Lockhart had them all wearing golden wings and carrying harps.

"My friendly, card-carrying cupids!" beamed Lockhart. "They will be roving around the school today delivering your valentines! And the fun doesn't stop here! I'm sure my colleagues will want to enter into the spirit of the occasion! Why not ask Professor Snape to show you how to whip up a Love Potion! And while you're at it, Professor Flitwick knows more about Entrancing Enchantments than any wizard I've ever met, the sly old dog!"

Professor Flitwick buried his face in his hands, and Snape was looking as though the first person to ask him for a Love Potion would be force-fed poison.

"Please, Hermione, tell me you weren't one of the forty-six," muttered Ron as they left the Great Hall for their first lesson. Hermione suddenly became very interested in searching her bag for her schedule, and didn't answer.

All day long, the dwarfs kept barging into their classes to deliver valentines, to the annoyance of the teachers, and late that afternoon as the Gryffindors were walking upstairs for Charms, one of them caught up with Harry.

"Oi, you! 'Arry Potter!" shouted a particularly grim-looking dwarf, elbowing people out of the way to get to him.

Melody snorted and shoved Harry backwards toward the dwarf; he tried to escape — the dwarf, however, cut his way through the crowd by kicking people's shins, and reached Harry before he'd gone two paces.

"I've got a musical message to deliver to 'Arry Potter in person," he said, twanging his harp in a threatening sort of way.

"Not here," Harry hissed, sending a daggered glare at Melody. She shrugged and leaned forward to get a good view.

"Stay still!" the dwarf said, leaping onto Harry's ankles. "Here is your singing valentine:

His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad,

His hair is as dark as a blackboard.

I wish he was mine, he's really divine,

The hero who conquered the Dark Lord."

Harry looked as though he wanted to evaporate on the spot, trying valiantly to laugh along with everyone else —

Of course, Melody drew her wand threateningly and marched down the staircase, brandishing it to a frightened line of first years while screaming "Who sent it? Show yourself, coward!" repeatedly.

And Harry grinned at her, all the embarrassing wafting away from his expression.

She beamed back in his direction, cheeks turning a flattering shade of crimson before she quite knew why.

It only came to her halfway through their Charms lesson, when she accidentally shrunk her bag instead of the provided apple — she had blushed.

At Harry.

It could've just been the Valentine's Day festivities permeating the tight door on that part of her spirit, but it certainly didn't feel like it. It had felt genuine, instinctive, even.

So Melody made a silent promise with herself, a vow of solemnity in the middle of Charms class— that would never happen again.

Ever, she added hastily, just in case.

Nobody ever stays, after all, and she knew it. Harry's promises were fragile, teetering on the brink of extinction after all they'd been through.

And her heart, too, was a delicate paper butterfly. She still didn't trust anyone, not even him, to handle it. She was running from the final confrontation, but like she had told herself so firmly the previous year, she'd face her demons one day.

Just not yet.

        𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐑𝐘 woke up the next day to brilliant sunshine and a light, refreshing breeze, but like so many things in his life — the day didn't go quite as smoothly.

It had been the day of the second Quidditch match; Gryffindor vs Hufflepuff. Just as Harry was mounting his broom, Melody at his side, Professor McGonagall came running across the pitch, carrying an enormous purple megaphone.

His heart had dropped like a stone.

"This match has been canceled," she'd called through the megaphone, addressing the packed stadium. There were boos and shouts, shaking the very earth Harry stood on.

Oliver Wood, looking devastated, had landed and ran toward Professor McGonagall without getting off his broomstick, followed closely by Melody.

"But, Professor!" Wood had shouted. "We've got to play—"

"The Cup!" cried Melody. "Gryffindor!"

"This is outrageous—"

"Why weren't we warned—"

"You can't cancel Quidditch!"

Professor McGonagall had ignored them and continued to shout through her megaphone: "All students are to make their way back to the House common rooms, where their Heads of Houses will give them further information. As quickly as you can, please!"

Then she'd lowered the megaphone, given her granddaughter a grave look, and beckoned Harry over to her.

"Potter, I think you'd better come with us . . ."

Wondering how she could possibly suspect him for an attack this time, Harry had seen Ron detach himself from the complaining crowd and join them. The four had walked back into the school and up the marble staircase, but they weren't taken to anybody's office—

"This will be a bit of a shock," said Professor McGonagall in a surprisingly gentle voice as they approached the infirmary. "There has been another attack . . . another double attack."

Harry's insides did a horrible, trembling somersault. Professor McGonagall pushed the door open and he, Melody, and Ron entered.

Madam Pomfrey was bending over a sixth-year girl with long, curly hair wearing Ravenclaw robes. And on the bed next to her was—

"Hermione," Melody whispered.

Sure enough, it was her: Hermione lay utterly still on the hospital bed, her eyes open and glassy.

"They were found near the library," said Professor McGonagall. "I don't suppose either of you can explain this? It was on the floor next to them . . ."

She was holding up a small, circular mirror.

Harry, Melody, and Ron all shook their heads, staring at Hermione.

"I will escort you back to Gryffindor Tower," said Professor McGonagall heavily, after a moment. "I need to address the House in any case."

By the end of the week, students had to return to their common rooms by six every night and be escorted to each class by a teacher. It was a different kind of Hogwarts, Harry thought, graceless and shifted.

Melody, though, ever-heartbroken, was the strangest change of all. Her friendship with Hermione had been a peculiar seed, no matter the season — it had always bore fruit, and for the very first time, it was laid bare.

She now spent most of her time in the hospital wing, bringing Hermione freshly-picked flowers and reading her stories, willing, hoping, praying with all her soul that by some miracle, she'd spring back to life.

But after weeks of devoted longing, one night changed it all — when she tore into Harry and Ron's dormitory, holding a crumpled piece of paper.

"Harry — Ron —" she croaked, gasping for breath. "Common room."

Harry exchanged a worried look with Ron and hurried after her, following her to an armchair in the corner.

"This was in Hermione's hand," Melody said intensely, thrusting the paper out towards them. "I can't believe it."

Harry gently took the paper from her shaking hand, and held it up to the light. It was a page torn from a very old library book. He smoothed it out, and Ron leaned close to read it, too.

Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken's egg, hatched beneath a toad. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it.

And beneath this, a single word had been written, in a hand Harry recognized as Hermione's.

Pipes.

It was as though somebody had just flicked a light on in his brain.

"Mel," he breathed. "This is it."

"I know," she sputtered back. "The monster in the Chamber's a basilisk."

"That's why I can hear its voice," he realized. "It's because I understand Parseltongue. . ."

"The basilisk kills people by looking at them," Melody said. "But no one's died — because no one looked it straight in the eye. Mrs. Norris saw it through that puddle on the floor, Colin saw it through his camera—"

"Justin must've seen the basilisk through Nearly Headless Nick . . . and Hermione and that Ravenclaw girl were found with a mirror next to them. I bet you anything she warned the first person she met to look around corners with a mirror first! And that girl pulled out her mirror — and —"

Ron's jaw had dropped. "But how's the basilisk been getting around the place?" he said. "A giant snake . . . Someone would've seen . . ."

Melody, however, leaned over and pointed at the word Hermione had scribbled at the foot of the page.

"Pipes," she said. "It's been using the plumbing. Harry's been hearing that voice inside the walls . . ."

"This means," continued Harry, "I can't be the only Parselmouth in the school. The Heir of Slytherin's one, too. That's how he's been controlling the basilisk."

"What're we going to do?" said Ron, whose eyes were flashing. "Should we go straight to McGonagall?"

"The staffroom," suggested Melody. "All the teachers should be there."

They ran downstairs. Not wanting to be discovered hanging around in another corridor, they went straight into the staffroom. It was a large, paneled space full of dark, wooden chairs, but it was deserted.

Five minutes of anxious pacing told them that nobody was coming — until, echoing through the corridors, came Professor McGonagall's voice:

"All students return to their House dormitories at once. All teachers return to the staffroom. Immediately, please."

Harry wheeled around. "Not another attack? Not now?"

"What'll we do?" said Ron, aghast. "Go back to the dormitory?"

"No," said Melody, glancing around with a flame in her eyes. There was an ugly sort of wardrobe to their left, full of the teachers' cloaks— "In there. Let's hear what it's all about. Then we can tell them what we've found out."

They hid themselves inside it, listening to the rumbling of hundreds of people moving overhead, and the staffroom door banging open. From between the musty folds of the cloaks, they watched the teachers filtering into the room. Some of them were looking puzzled, others downright scared. Then Professor McGonagall arrived.

"It has happened," she told the silent staffroom. "A student has been taken by the monster. Right into the Chamber itself."

Professor Flitwick let out a squeal. Professor Sprout clapped her hands over her mouth. Snape gripped the back of a chair very hard and said, "How can you be sure?"

"The Heir of Slytherin," said Professor McGonagall, who was very white, "left another message. Right underneath the first one. 'Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever.'"

Professor Flitwick burst into tears.

"Who is it?" said Madam Hooch, who had sunk, weak-kneed, into a chair. "Which student?"

"Ginny Weasley," said Professor McGonagall.

Harry felt Ron slide silently down onto the wardrobe floor beside him, and Melody immediately seized his hand in fear — she awkwardly pulled it away after a second, suddenly very interested in a cloak hanging next to her.

"We shall have to send all the students home tomorrow," said Professor McGonagall. "This is the end of Hogwarts. Dumbledore always said . . ."

The staffroom door banged open again. For one wild moment, Harry was sure it would be Dumbledore. But it was Lockhart, and he was beaming.

"So sorry — dozed off — what have I missed?"

He didn't seem to notice that the other teachers were looking at him with something remarkably like hatred. Snape stepped forward.

"Just the man," he said. "The very man. A girl has been snatched by the monster, Lockhart. Taken into the Chamber of Secrets itself. Your moment has come at last."

Lockhart blanched.

"That's right, Gilderoy," chipped in Professor Sprout. "Weren't you saying just last night that you've known all along where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is?"

"I — well, I —" stuttered Lockhart.

"Yes, didn't you tell me you were sure you knew what was inside it?" piped up Professor Flitwick.

Lockhart stared around at his stony-faced colleagues.

"I — I really never — you may have misunderstood —"

"We'll leave it to you, then, Gilderoy," said Professor McGonagall. "Tonight will be an excellent time to do it. We'll make sure everyone's out of your way. You'll be able to tackle the monster all by yourself. A free rein at last."

Lockhart gazed desperately around him, but nobody came to the rescue. He didn't look remotely handsome anymore. His lip was trembling, and in the absence of his usually toothy grin, he looked weak-chinned and feeble.

"V-very well," he said. "I'll — I'll be in my office, getting — getting ready." And he left the room.

"Right," said Professor McGonagall, whose nostrils were flared, "that's got him out from under our feet. The Heads of Houses should go and inform their students what has happened. Tell them the Hogwarts Express will take them home first thing tomorrow. Will the rest of you please make sure no students have been left outside their dormitories."

The teachers rose and left, one by one.

It was probably the worst day of Harry's entire life. He, Melody, Ron, Fred, and George sat together in a corner of the Gryffindor common room, unable to say anything to each other. Percy wasn't there. He had gone to send an owl to Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, then shut himself up in his dormitory.

No afternoon ever lasted as long as that one, nor had Gryffindor Tower ever been so crowded, yet so quiet. Near sunset, Fred and George went up to bed, unable to sit there any longer.

"She knew something," said Ron, speaking for the first time since they had entered the wardrobe in the staffroom. "That's why she was taken. She'd found out something about the Chamber of Secrets. That must be why she was—" Ron rubbed his eyes frantically. "I mean, she was a pureblood. There can't be any other reason."

Harry could see the sun sinking, blood-red, below the skyline outside. This was the worst he had ever felt. If only there was something they could do, anything.

"Harry," continued Ron. "D'you think there's any chance at all she's not — you know—"

Harry didn't know what to say, lips chilled with silence. He couldn't see how Ginny could still be alive.

"D'you know what?" said Ron. "I think we should go and see Lockhart. Tell him what we know. He's going to try and get into the Chamber. We can tell him that we think it's a basilisk in there."

Because Harry couldn't think of anything else to do, and because he wanted to be doing something, he agreed. As he rose from his cold chair, however, he felt an undeniable gush of warmth, like a dark crescent moon emerging into more light. Then, he realized why —

Melody had caught his hand, fingers soft and nourishing.

"Ree, I—" she swallowed, making even the smallest of motions appear to him like a dreamier moment, "I think I'm going to go to bed."

Harry stroked her thumb with his. "Okay," he replied, so innocent, yet so obliviously smitten. "I'll see you soon."

Soon.

He gave her a tight smile, which she returned —an engraving upon his heart, that smile— before dropping her hand and following Ron out through the portrait hole.

        𝐌𝐄𝐋𝐎𝐃𝐘 wondered if "soon" meant something unique in Harry Potter's vocabulary.

Scratch that, she didn't wonder — she knew it did.

When he left the Gryffindor common room, Melody's desire for rest had suddenly vanished, leaving nothing but a terrible sinking feeling in her stomach. She had fled to her grandmother's office at once, but it was too late.

Harry had already gone into the Chamber, accompanied only by Ron and an incompetent blond Professor.

He's left again, Melody's heart had cried, unforgiving: That was goodbye.

But at the same time, regardless of the star-aligned fate destined for them, it wasn't.

Harry, as she had once told him, attracted trouble like the Sun did Mercury. Yet somehow, in spite of all that peril, he managed to escape his final judgment again, to run from Death, like nobody would ever stop him.

Because after what felt like endless hours of worry, there he stood: covered in muck, slime, and blood, in her grandmother's office doorway.

There was a scream.

"Ginny!"

It was Mrs. Weasley, who had been sitting crying in front of the fire for the past few hours.

She leapt to her feet, closely followed by Mr. Weasley, and both of them flung themselves on their daughter.

Harry, however, was looking past them, right at her, at Melody, and they were racing to each other before a single cosmic blink.

She felt at home in his arms, finally, but she still found it in herself to humorously shriek "Not blood again! Third time this week!" when they pulled apart.

He grinned, eyes twinkling especially bright to contrast his grimy face. "Wait until I tell you everything—"

"Not until you give a detailed explanation of the definition of the word 'soon'—"

But Harry was already being swept into Mrs. Weasley's tight embrace, and Melody smiled: they would have time for a lengthy vocabulary lesson later. She looked around — Professor Dumbledore was standing by the mantelpiece, beaming, next to her grandmother, who was taking great, steadying gasps, clutching her chest.

"You saved her! You saved her! How did you do it?" Mrs. Weasley exclaimed before finally releasing Harry.

"I think we'd all like to know that," said Melody's grandmother weakly.

Harry hesitated for a moment, casting his gaze briefly over to Melody, then walked over to the desk and laid upon it the Sorting Hat, a ruby-encrusted sword, and a demolished diary.

And then, to Melody's delight, he told them everything. For nearly a quarter of an hour he spoke into the rapt silence: He told them about hearing the disembodied voice, how Hermione had finally realized that he was hearing a basilisk in the pipes, Fawkes's timely arrival in the Chamber, and the Sorting Hat giving him the sword.

"What interests me most," Dumbledore finally said, "is how Lord Voldemort managed to enchant Ginny, when my sources tell me he is currently hiding in the forests of Albania."

"Ginny?" said Mrs. Weasley incredulously. "What's our Ginny got to do with — with — him?"

"His d-diary!" Ginny choked out through several sobs. "I've b-been writing in it, and he's been w-writing back all year—"

"Miss Weasley should go up to the hospital wing right away," Dumbledore interrupted in a firm voice. "This has been a terrible ordeal for her. There will be no punishment. Older and wiser wizards than she have been hoodwinked by Lord Voldemort." He strode over to the door and opened it. "Bed rest and perhaps a large, steaming mug of hot chocolate. I always find that cheers me up," he added, twinkling kindly down at her. "You will find that Madam Pomfrey is still awake. She's just giving out Mandrake juice — I daresay the basilisk's victims will be waking up any moment."

"So Hermione's okay!" Melody broke in, chest exploding with grateful fireworks.

"Yes, she is," answered Dumbledore. "There has been no lasting harm done, Ginny."

Mrs. Weasley led Ginny out, and Mr. Weasley followed, looking deeply shaken.

"You know, Minerva," Professor Dumbledore said thoughtfully to Melody's grandmother, "I think all this merits a good feast. Might I ask you to go and alert the kitchens?"

"Right," said Melody's grandmother crisply, also moving to the door. "I'll leave you to deal with Potter and Weasley, shall I?"

"Certainly."

"Come on, then, Melody," she extended an arm towards her granddaughter, expression vaguely joyful. "I seem to remember you possess a great strength for social organizing."

"You'd be correct, grandma," Melody beamed, casting a wink in Harry's direction. She took her grandmother's arm and heard Dumbledore begin to murmur something about special awards for services to the school, but the door had already magically shut behind them.

The feast ended up being magnificent, if it wasn't too bold to say— everybody was in their pajamas, and the celebration lasted all night. Melody didn't know whether the best bit was Hermione running toward her and Harry, screaming "You solved it! You solved it!", Justin hurrying over from the Hufflepuff table to wring Harry's hand and apologize endlessly for suspecting him, Hagrid turning up at half past three, Harry and Ron's four hundred points for Gryffindor securing the House Cup for the second year running, Melody's grandmother standing up to tell them all that the exams had been canceled as a school treat ("Oh, no!" said Hermione), or Dumbledore announcing that, unfortunately, Professor Lockhart would be unable to return next year, owing to the fact that he needed to go away and get his memory back. (Quite a few of the teachers joined in the cheering that greeted this news).

But the last day of term was what stuck with Melody, like a distinctive core memory that just wouldn't budge. It saw her sunbathing by the lake, hair braided into a crown around her head, with Harry at her side.

"Shame Lockhart's leaving," she murmured to him, flicking through the pages of a thick old book: William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, fitting for the tragic events of the past few weeks; years, even. "He was starting to grow on me."

Harry gave her a wordless look of disgust.

"Joking," she chuckled. She gently marked her place in the book, (just after Tybalt's murder) then set it down to lay back onto her hands. "We'll see who fills his spot."

Then, they were quiet.

Melody's stare traversed the sky knowingly — she could only hear the shifting of the white clouds, the splash of the lake kissing the shore, and the slight gust of warm wind every few seconds. She should've known that a heavier question was lingering in the air, just waiting to be asked.

Because Harry, next to her, was taking a deep breath before speaking: the last moment of unknowing. "Melody, are you alright?"

She blinked in surprise. "Uh— why?"

He shrugged. "You only voluntarily read books—"

"Plays," corrected Melody. "Shakespeare wrote plays."

"Whichever," Harry murmured, fiddling with his thumbs. "Anyway, you only voluntarily read in general when something's wrong."

Melody felt her brows knit together. "Do I?" she said, amused. "What else do I do?"

Harry closed his eyes, as if to focus. "You hum when you braid your hair. Your eyes twinkle when you think about the stars. You pick flowers when you're trying to convince yourself everything will be fine, even though you're struggling to believe it."

Melody chuckled. "Are you sure you're not a stalker?"

"Positive," he responded, eyes open now, "Now answer my question."

At last, she tore her gaze away from the sky.

Dreamful, she noted, was a perfect adjective to describe Harry Potter. He was staring up at the heavens in the same way he always did — full of mystification. She wouldn't usually answer a question as loaded and complex as the one he had just asked her, but maybe she was learning to be a bit more open.

"I guess I'm dealing with the baggage of having my best friend leave to murder some giant snake and almost kill himself in the process," she said, hardly listening to her own response— it frightened her far too much.

Harry glanced over at her. "Oh."

Again, they were quiet, just the slightest flourish of breeze still whistling in their ears.

Melody didn't think Harry would have anything else to say. She didn't expect him to, not after what she had just told him.

But he did.

His voice was soft, scratchy, and tinted with emotion when it broke into the stillness once more. "You know, I don't want to fight anyone, not even a giant evil snake, Melody. I never have."

She smiled thinly. "I know."

"And I don't want to worry anyone, either," he continued evenly. "Least of all you."

"I know that too."

It was quiet once more.

They good things come in threes, and maybe Melody finally believed it — because in this third bout of silence between them, she sat up, and decided to do the most courageous thing she'd done in a long, long while.

Be honest, and in her honesty, be vulnerable.

"What's different about you, Harry, what I can't quite figure out — whenever you leave, you keep coming back," she found herself saying. "I've never had that in someone before, and I'm worried that one day, it'll all disappear."

He sat up next to her, eyes wide and deep, like pools of emerald quicksand waiting to pull her under. She wouldn't let them, she had promised herself months ago — but she knew better than anyone that promises couldn't be trusted forever.

"I swear, Melody," Harry said firmly, "I'll always come back to you. Until the end, remember?"

She looked away.

Maybe it was his truthful, unshielded tone, or maybe it was the sincerity of his words, but she couldn't bring herself to keep gazing into those eyes. At least not yet.

Not yet, not yet, not yet.

That promise hadn't broken, not yet.

But she wasn't ready to admit it, not yet, not yet, not yet.

It echoed like a haunted chorus in her mind, a poem she didn't want to hear anymore, but one that was true nonetheless. Why couldn't she stop pulling it forward, like an anvil strapped to her back? It was a warning and a certitude all wrapped up in one, and she just wanted to be free of it.

I'll always come back to you.

How many times would he have to say it before she started to believe him?

Harry didn't see the freshly-picked bouquet of yellow freesias behind her, or the flicker of fear which tainted her eyes a dark, unwelcoming grey. He didn't know that once again, her head was screaming liar, liar, liar, while her heart was screaming love, love, love.

All he saw was a nod.

And for now, that would have to be enough.