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Aria Parkinson was not meant to be in the library.
This was not, in fairness, an unusual state of affairs.
Aria Parkinson was often not meant to be somewhere. She had a particular talent for standing in places she had been expressly told not to stand in, sitting on surfaces she had been told were not seats, climbing things that had not been designed with climbing in mind, and appearing in rooms from which she had been banned with the bright, feral confidence of a cat returning to a neighbour’s kitchen after being sprayed with water.
The library, however, was a more delicate matter.
Madam Pince had banned her two weeks ago.
Technically, it had only been a temporary ban.
Technically, Aria had only been told she was “not to return until she understood that books were not weapons, paperweights, shields, stepping stones, pillows, hats, or acceptable hiding places for contraband sweets.”
Technically, Aria had not been banned from the library forever.
But the way Madam Pince had said her name, low and sharp and full of doom, had made it feel quite a lot like forever.
Aria had taken this as a challenge.
She was twelve years old, small and sharp-elbowed, with long black hair that fell down her back in uneven waves and had been attacked by streaks of blonde that looked as if someone had tried to charm sunlight into it and given up halfway through. The streaks were badly done. Everyone could tell they were badly done. Aria insisted they were intentional because intentional mistakes were fashion, actually, and everyone else was just tragically behind.
Her eyeliner was worse.
It sat around her eyes in thick black smudges, too heavy at the corners and uneven enough that one eye always looked more haunted than the other. She’d stolen the makeup from somewhere she refused to name and applied it in the mirror of the second-floor girls’ toilets while balancing on the sink and whispering encouragement to herself like a general before battle.
Her uniform had been modified with an optimism entirely unsupported by skill. Her Hufflepuff tie was too loose, her shirt too big and half untucked, her jumper deliberately stretched at the sleeves until they swallowed her hands, and her skirt had been altered in a way that probably broke at least seven dress-code rules but not in a clean enough manner for anyone to identify which ones. Her socks were mismatched. Her shoes were scuffed. There were doodles up one wrist in ink. There was a safety pin through the hem of her jumper for no practical reason at all except that she liked the way it looked.
She was not yet fully herself. Not yet the loud, glittering disaster she would become. Not yet all sharp edges and bad ideas with smoke in her hair and trouble at her heels.
But she was getting there.
She had a talent for becoming.
At the moment, she was becoming bored.
Barty was busy.
This was unforgivable.
Aria had spent ten whole minutes looking for him, which was basically devotion, and all she had discovered was that he had gone off with his other friends. His other friends, as if Aria was supposed to accept that sort of betrayal with grace. She’d considered tracking him down just to complain at him, but that required effort, and she had already used most of hers dramatically sighing near a tapestry and telling a suit of armour that nobody appreciated her.
Then she had tried to find Lucas.
Lucas was little and easy to bother.
Lucas was a first year, which meant he was still new enough to Hogwarts to be impressed by secret passages and gullible enough to believe Aria when she said perfectly normal things like, “The third-floor corridor bites if it smells fear,” or, “If you knock on the kitchens in the wrong rhythm, the elves make you soup with bones in it.”
But Lucas was nowhere.
Not in the corridor by the kitchens.
Not even near the courtyard, where he sometimes stood looking at birds like they might start speaking to him if he was polite enough.
So Aria, deeply abandoned by everyone she had ever known and wronged by the universe on a personal level, had ended up in the one place she was not supposed to be.
The library.
She had got in through the side aisle, naturally.
Aria did not enter rooms like normal people. Normal people used doors in ordinary ways and then suffered the consequences of being noticed. Aria preferred strategy. She slipped in behind a pair of tall Ravenclaws carrying too many books, ducked low behind a return trolley, and shuffled sideways into the shadow of a shelf with the ease of someone who had spent much of her young life avoiding adults, consequences, and anyone asking where she had got that from.
The library was warm in the way old places were warm, full of dust and parchment and polished wood. Afternoon light came through the tall windows in dull gold bars, falling across rows of tables and long shelves that climbed almost to the ceiling. The air smelled of ink, leather, candle wax, and the faint dry threat of Madam Pince.
Aria paused behind a shelf of goblin rebellions and listened.
Pages turned.
Quills scratched.
Someone coughed carefully, as though afraid the cough might be graded.
Somewhere near the front desk, Madam Pince muttered to herself.
Aria grinned.
“Idiot,” she whispered fondly to herself, and kept moving.
She crept between shelves with her shoulders hunched, sleeves swinging over her hands, hair falling in her face. Every few steps, she paused and peered around a corner, eyes bright under the smeared black of her eyeliner. Once, when a third year glanced up, Aria pressed herself flat against the books and widened her eyes in warning until he looked away again.
She had no plan.
This was also not unusual.
She had come into the library because she was banned, bored, and lonely, and because every room in Hogwarts felt more interesting when she was not allowed to be in it. Now she was here, however, she had discovered the fatal flaw in her scheme.
Libraries were very quiet when one had no one to annoy.
Aria wandered.
She picked up a book, opened it, saw a diagram of something with far too many legs, and put it back upside down. She poked the spine of another book just to see if it would twitch. She slid down one aisle, turned, found herself in a row of books about magical fungi, decided fungus sounded rude, and snorted so loudly that a Ravenclaw at the end of the shelf hissed at her.
Aria hissed back.
The Ravenclaw fled.
That cheered her up for nearly thirty seconds.
Then she reached the back of the library, near one of the quieter tables tucked between two tall shelves and half-hidden from the main room, and stopped.
There was a girl sitting there.
A Hufflepuff.
Aria recognised the uniform first, because the yellow at the tie was familiar even in the dimness between the shelves. Then she recognised the girl in the hazy, uncertain way one recognised people who occupied the same common room and year without ever actually speaking to them.
Tall.
Or at least taller than Aria, which was rude but not uncommon.
Curly hair.
Not just curly, actually. Huge curls, brown and wild and bushy enough that they looked like they were trying to escape her head in every direction at once. Her hair took up space in a way the rest of her did not. The girl herself was folded small over the table despite her height, wrapped in baggy clothes that looked too soft and too big. Her jumper sagged at the shoulders. Her sleeves hid half her hands. Her robes were pooled around her chair like she might be nesting inside them.
She sat alone.
Completely alone.
No one across from her. No one beside her. No one hovering nearby waiting to talk.
There were books open in front of her, but she did not look like someone triumphantly studying. She looked like someone trying very hard to disappear into the table and hoping the world would lose interest before it reached her.
Aria narrowed her eyes.
Interesting.
The girl turned a page. Slowly. Carefully. Her shoulders were up near her ears. There was a quill in her hand, but she wasn’t writing anything. She was staring at the page as if reading required negotiating with it first.
Aria tilted her head.
She knew that shape.
Alone.
Quiet.
Trying not to be noticed.
Aria grinned.
Oh, that would not do.
She slipped around the nearest shelf, ducked behind another table, nearly knocked over an abandoned stack of books, caught them with both hands at the last second, silently celebrated herself as a hero, and then crept towards the girl from behind.
The girl did not notice.
Aria leaned closer.
Still nothing.
Closer.
The girl’s curls were even bigger from this angle. Aria could have hidden a small animal in there. Several, probably. An entire rebellion, if properly organised.
Aria planted both hands on the back of the girl’s chair, shot up on her toes, and said, loudly and brightly, “Hello!”
The girl jumped so violently her quill flew from her hand.
It skittered across the table, bounced off the edge of a book, and rolled into a small gap between two piles of parchment. The girl twisted round with wide brown eyes and a strangled little noise caught in her throat.
Aria burst out laughing.
Not quietly.
Not politely.
Not in any way appropriate for a library.
It was a sharp, delighted cackle that made two students at a nearby table flinch and someone three shelves over whisper, “Shh!”
Aria ignored them.
“Oh, you jumped so much,” she said, leaning over the back of the chair, chin nearly on the girl’s shoulder. “That was brilliant. I thought you were going to hit the ceiling.”
The girl stared at her.
Her mouth opened.
Closed.
Opened again.
No words came out.
Aria’s grin widened.
“You’re very quiet,” she observed.
The girl blinked.
Aria nodded thoughtfully. “That’s fine. I can talk enough for both of us.”
The girl’s eyes flicked towards the front of the library.
Aria followed the look, then ducked lower with exaggerated seriousness. “Oh, right. Yeah. Pince. Don’t look at her. She can smell betrayal.”
The girl whispered, “What?”
“Madam Pince,” Aria whispered back, except Aria’s whisper was more like a theatrical stage hiss. “She knows when you’re afraid.”
The girl looked even more alarmed.
Aria laughed again and swung around the chair, dropping into the seat opposite her as if she had been invited, which she absolutely had not. She rested both elbows on the table, then immediately got bored of sitting normally and leaned forward until her chest was nearly flat against the wood.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
The girl stared at her across the books.
“Studying?” Aria guessed. “That’s awful. Why?”
“I—” The girl glanced down at the book, then up at Aria, then down again. “I have homework.”
“That’s worse,” Aria said solemnly. “Studying is already bad, but homework means someone told you to do it. That’s morally embarrassing.”
“It’s not—” The girl paused, looking as if she wasn’t sure whether she was allowed to disagree. “It’s just homework.”
“No such thing.”
The girl gripped the edge of one sleeve in her fingers and twisted it. “Are you meant to be here?”
Aria put a hand to her chest. “That’s a very rude question to ask someone you’ve just met.”
“You came up behind me.”
“Yes.”
“And shouted.”
“I said hello.”
“You shouted hello.”
“It was a friendly shout.”
“In a library.”
Aria beamed. “See? You do talk.”
The girl went pink.
Aria found that delightful.
The pink started at her cheeks and crept outwards, soft and startled, making her look more alive than she had when Aria first spotted her hunched over the table. Her eyes were big behind the anxious dip of her brows, and she seemed to be doing the careful maths of whether Aria was dangerous, irritating, interesting, or all three.
All three, probably.
Aria hoped so.
“I’m Aria,” she said, then leaned even further across the table. “You’re in Hufflepuff.”
The girl hesitated. “So are you.”
“I know,” said Aria. “I live there.”
“That’s not—”
“I’ve seen you.”
The girl froze slightly.
Aria pointed at her. “Common room. Lessons. Breakfast sometimes. You sit by the window a lot.”
“I don’t—” The girl stopped. “Do I?”
“Yes. And you do this thing where you try to make yourself smaller, but your hair doesn’t cooperate, so it’s very funny.”
The girl’s hands flew halfway up to her hair before stopping, embarrassed. “My hair’s not funny.”
“No, it’s good funny,” Aria said quickly, then frowned because that sounded strange. “Like, it’s interesting. It’s got opinions.”
“My hair doesn’t have opinions.”
“Yes, it does. It hates gravity.”
The girl stared at her.
Aria stared back, smiling.
A moment passed.
Then the girl made a tiny sound.
Not a laugh, exactly. More like the first piece of one escaping before she could catch it.
Aria’s face lit up as if she had won something.
“There,” she said. “Knew you were funny.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Exactly. Very efficient.”
The girl looked down again, but not before Aria saw the corner of her mouth twitch.
Good.
Progress.
Aria got up.
The girl’s head snapped up in confusion as Aria began pacing beside the table, because sitting still had become unbearable after roughly fourteen seconds. She moved in a tight line between the chairs, hands disappearing into her sleeves, hair swishing behind her. The badly bleached streaks caught the library light in odd little flashes.
“So,” Aria said. “I’m bored.”
The girl looked as if she did not know what to do with that information. “Oh.”
“Barty’s busy.”
“Oh.”
“With his other friends,” Aria added, offended all over again. “Which is disgusting behaviour, obviously.”
The girl blinked. “Who’s Barty?”
Aria stopped walking.
She looked genuinely shocked.
“You don’t know Barty?”
The girl shook her head.
“Lucky,” Aria said immediately.
The girl blinked again.
“He’s annoying,” Aria continued, pacing once more. “Really annoying. Like, all bones and shouting and thinking he’s clever because sometimes he is, which is the worst kind. He talks too much.”
The girl gave Aria a cautious look.
Aria pointed at her. “I talk a normal amount.”
“You’ve been here for about two minutes.”
“And?”
“You’ve talked the whole time.”
“Exactly. Normal.”
The girl’s mouth twitched again.
Aria leaned down over the table, hands flat on either side of the open book, getting so close the girl had to lean back a little. “You’d hate him.”
“I don’t know him.”
“You’d still hate him.”
“I might not.”
“You would.”
The girl’s brows drew together, less afraid now and more puzzled. “Why?”
“Because he’s Barty.”
“That doesn’t explain anything.”
“It explains everything if you meet him.”
The girl seemed to consider that, then quietly said, “I don’t really meet many people.”
Aria’s grin softened around the edges before snapping back into place, too quick to be pitied, too bright to be vulnerable.
“Well,” she said, “you’ve met me now.”
“Yes,” the girl said, very carefully, as if this might be a trap.
“So that’s fixed.”
“What’s fixed?”
“You not meeting people.”
“That’s only one person.”
“I count as at least six.”
The girl’s eyes widened slightly. “Do you?”
“Minimum.”
“Why?”
Aria shrugged. “Volume.”
That did make the girl laugh.
It was small and surprised and over almost as soon as it began, but it was definitely a laugh. Aria heard it clearly. She saw the way the girl clapped a sleeve-covered hand over her mouth, as if she’d let something slip.
Aria pointed at her again. “Ha. You’re not boring.”
“I didn’t say I was.”
“You looked like you thought it.”
The girl looked down at her hands. “I don’t know.”
“That means yes.”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Yes, it does. People only say ‘I don’t know’ like that when they do know and don’t want to say because the answer’s sad.”
The girl went quiet.
Aria stared at her for a beat too long.
Then, abruptly, she climbed onto the chair.
The girl jolted. “What are you doing?”
“Changing the subject.”
“You can’t stand on the chair.”
“Clearly I can. Look.”
“You’ll get us in trouble.”
“I’m already in trouble.”
“I’m not.”
“Then you need the practice.”
The girl’s mouth fell open a little. “What?”
Aria hopped down again before she could be spotted over the shelves, landing with a soft thump. Somewhere, Madam Pince’s voice sliced faintly through the library.
“Silence!”
Aria ducked instinctively and dropped into the chair opposite again.
The girl looked horrified.
Aria pressed one finger to her lips, eyes sparkling. “She can’t see me.”
“She can hear you.”
“Only if you believe in her.”
“That’s not how hearing works.”
“How do you know? Are you a Healer?”
“No.”
“Exactly.”
The girl stared at her, then very slowly pulled her book closer, as if it might protect her.
Aria flopped forward across the table. Not just leaning this time. She slid until her ribs were pressed against the edge and her elbows were planted among the papers. Her legs kicked up behind her, feet lifting into the air, shoes swinging lazily.
The girl stared at the shoes.
“You’re going to fall.”
“No, I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I have excellent balance.”
“You nearly knocked over those books earlier.”
Aria paused. “You saw that?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t say anything?”
“I didn’t know you.”
“You know me now.”
“I still don’t know why you’re doing that.”
Aria wiggled one foot in the air. “Because I’m comfortable.”
“That looks uncomfortable.”
“You look uncomfortable.”
The girl immediately sat straighter, then looked annoyed with herself for doing it.
Aria grinned. “What’s your name?”
The girl hesitated.
Aria gasped dramatically. “You do have one, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Good. That would’ve been awkward.”
The girl worried her sleeve between her fingers again. “Briar.”
“Briar,” Aria repeated, as if tasting the shape of it. “Briar what?”
“Rosewood.”
Aria’s grin sharpened into something delighted. “Briar Rosewood.”
“Yes.”
“That’s a very pretty name.”
Briar looked startled.
Aria did not seem to notice that she had said it with complete sincerity. She was too busy repeating it under her breath, as if she had found a spell she liked.
“Briar Rosewood,” she said again. “That sounds like you should live in a tower or a haunted garden or something.”
“I don’t.”
“Shame.”
“I live in the dormitory.”
“That’s less interesting.”
“I know.”
Aria’s eyes flashed. “You do know.”
Briar ducked her head, embarrassed by her own small boldness.
Aria kicked her legs higher behind her, pleased enough that one of her shoes nearly clipped the back of the chair. “I’m keeping you.”
Briar looked up sharply. “What?”
“I’m keeping you.”
“You can’t keep people.”
“Who said?”
“Everyone?”
“Everyone says boring things all the time.”
Briar looked around nervously, as if someone might be listening to this and preparing a report. “What does that even mean?”
“It means you’re mine now.”
Briar’s face went pink again. “I’m not.”
“As a friend,” Aria said, impatiently, like that should have been obvious. “Obviously. I’ve decided.”
“You’ve decided?”
“Yes.”
“We don’t know each other.”
“We know names. That’s basically the whole thing.”
“It’s not.”
“It’s the important bit.”
Briar pressed her lips together, then whispered, “You can’t just decide we’re friends.”
“Yes, I can.”
“No, you can’t.”
“I just did.”
“That doesn’t make it true.”
“Yes, it does. That’s how decisions work.”
Briar stared at her, caught somewhere between disbelief and fascination.
Aria stared back, absolutely untroubled.
“You’re very strange,” Briar said at last.
Aria looked thrilled. “Thank you.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“No, it’s good. You’re strange too.”
Briar’s face changed.
It was tiny, the sort of thing most people might have missed. A slight tightening around the eyes. A little sinking of the shoulders. The word had landed somewhere tender.
Aria noticed.
For all her noise, she noticed things like that.
She stopped kicking her legs and lowered them slowly back towards the floor, though she remained half-sprawled across the table.
“I mean good strange,” she said.
Briar kept looking down.
Aria frowned, annoyed with herself now. “Like me strange.”
Briar glanced up.
Aria pointed at herself. “Excellent strange. Interesting strange. Not boring. Not normal in the stupid way. Strange like… like you’d know where the best hiding places are.”
Briar’s voice was quiet. “I don’t.”
“You look like you would.”
“I mostly just sit.”
“Perfect. Sitting is the first step to hiding.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is if you’re committed.”
Briar’s lips twitched again.
Aria relaxed.
There it was.
She liked that little almost-laugh. It felt like stealing something from behind a locked door.
Aria sat up suddenly and dragged Briar’s open book towards herself.
Briar made a distressed noise. “Careful.”
“I’m careful.”
“You are not.”
Aria looked down at the page. “What is this?”
“My homework.”
“Yes, but what kind of homework?”
“Herbology.”
Aria squinted. “This says something about biting.”
“It’s about plants with defensive mechanisms.”
Aria’s whole face brightened.
Briar noticed. “What?”
“Defensive mechanisms,” Aria repeated, leaning closer. “Like teeth?”
“Not always teeth.”
“But sometimes teeth?”
Briar hesitated, then nodded. “Sometimes.”
Aria’s grin spread slowly, wicked and delighted. “Plants with teeth.”
“Not exactly teeth,” Briar said, but her voice changed.
It was still soft, still careful, but something had woken up inside it. Interest. Warmth. The first little spark of confidence.
Aria saw it at once.
She leaned forward, chin in her hands. “Tell me.”
Briar blinked. “Tell you what?”
“About the biting plants.”
“They don’t all bite.”
“Tell me about the ones that do.”
Briar looked at her suspiciously. “Why?”
“Because plants that bite people are brilliant.”
“They don’t bite people most of the time.”
“Disappointing.”
“They bite insects mostly. Or small animals, depending on the plant.”
Aria’s eyes went wide with joy. “Small animals?”
“Some of them.”
“Excellent.”
“It’s not— I mean, it’s not cruel. They’re just surviving.”
“I respect them.”
Briar looked surprised. “You do?”
“Obviously. If I was stuck in a pot all day and people kept poking me, I’d bite people too.”
Briar stared at her.
Then she laughed properly.
It came out quiet at first, but it grew before she could stop it, bubbling up behind her hand. Her shoulders shook. Her eyes squeezed shut. It made her seem suddenly less like she was trying to vanish and more like she had been there the whole time, hidden under all that wool and hair and shyness.
Aria watched her with open delight.
“There,” Aria said triumphantly. “That one was big.”
Briar lowered her hand, still smiling despite herself. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Yes,” Aria said. “Now tell me about the murder plants.”
“They’re not murder plants.”
“Briar.”
“They’re not.”
“Briar.”
“They’re not murder plants.”
“You just said they eat small animals.”
“That doesn’t make them murderers.”
“If I ate a small animal, people would call me a murderer.”
Briar paused.
Aria lifted her eyebrows.
Briar frowned. “That’s different.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“Because I’m not a plant?”
“Yes.”
Aria nodded gravely. “Prejudice.”
Briar pressed both sleeves against her mouth, failing badly at hiding her smile.
Aria slumped forward again, chin almost on the book. “Tell me everything.”
“You really want to know?”
“Yes.”
“About Herbology?”
“About biting plants.”
Briar looked down at the page, then at Aria, then back at the page. Her fingers loosened on her sleeve. She turned the book around so they could both see it properly.
“Well,” she began, still cautious, “some plants trap things because the soil where they grow doesn’t have enough nutrients. So they have to get them another way.”
Aria stared at her.
Briar faltered. “That’s boring.”
“No, it’s not.”
“It sounded boring.”
“It sounded like revenge against bad dirt.”
Briar’s eyes lit.
“It’s not revenge,” she said, but she sounded pleased now. “It’s adaptation.”
“That’s a posh word for revenge.”
“It isn’t.”
“It is when I say it.”
Briar shook her head, but she was smiling. “They don’t think like that.”
“How do you know?”
“They’re plants.”
“You just said they trap things. That sounds like thinking.”
“It’s not thinking, it’s response. Movement. Stimulus.”
Aria made a face. “That sounds like homework again.”
“It is homework.”
“Make it less homework.”
Briar considered this very seriously, which Aria liked. She liked when people treated her nonsense as if it deserved proper thought.
“Well,” Briar said slowly, “there are plants that close when something touches the hairs inside them. But they don’t close every time something brushes them, because that would waste energy.”
Aria gasped. “They’re clever.”
“They’re efficient.”
“Clever.”
“Efficient.”
“Tiny green geniuses.”
Briar looked helplessly amused. “Fine. Tiny green geniuses.”
Aria kicked her feet under the table. “I want one.”
“You can’t just have one.”
“Why not?”
“You have to look after them properly. They need the right conditions.”
“I can do conditions.”
Briar looked at her eyeliner, her altered uniform, her scuffed shoes, and the ink drawn up her wrist.
Aria narrowed her eyes. “I can.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You thought something.”
“I didn’t.”
“You did. Your face said it.”
“My face didn’t say anything.”
“Your face is very loud.”
Briar’s hands flew up to her cheeks, scandalised. “It is not.”
“It is. It said, ‘Aria Parkinson cannot be trusted with a plant because she looks like she might feed it biscuits.’”
“Would you?”
Aria paused.
Briar gave her a look.
Aria looked away. “Not after being told once.”
Briar laughed again.
Aria felt pleased in a way that made her restless, so she stood up and began pacing beside the table again. This time, Briar did not look quite as frightened by it. Her eyes followed Aria with a shy sort of interest.
“What else?” Aria asked. “What’s the worst one?”
“The worst plant?”
“Yes.”
“In what way?”
“The most violent.”
Briar thought about it, face serious. “There are lots of dangerous magical plants.”
“No, not just dangerous. I mean dramatic.”
“Dramatic?”
“Yeah. Like if a plant was going to make an entrance.”
Briar leaned over the book, curls slipping forward. “I suppose Devil’s Snare is dramatic.”
Aria stopped dead. “That sounds like a band.”
“What?”
“Devil’s Snare. That’s a band name.”
“It’s a plant.”
“It’s also a band name now.”
“You’re starting a band?”
“No. I can’t sing.”
Briar blinked. “Oh.”
“But if I could, I’d call it that.”
“What would you sing about?”
“Biting plants. Bad friends. Being banned from libraries.”
Briar’s eyes widened. “You are banned from the library?”
Aria winced.
Briar stared at her.
Aria held up one sleeve-covered hand. “Technically.”
“What did you do?”
“I don’t think we need to focus on the past.”
“What did you do?”
“Lots of people do lots of things.”
“Aria.”
Aria froze.
Then she slowly grinned.
“Oh,” she said. “That was good.”
“What?”
“You said my name like you were disappointed in me.”
Briar looked horrified. “I didn’t mean to.”
“No, do it again.”
“No.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“It was funny.”
“I’m not trying to be funny.”
“That’s why you are.”
Briar hid her face behind her sleeve. “You’re impossible.”
“Yes,” Aria said brightly. “Anyway, I got banned because Madam Pince lacks imagination.”
Briar lowered the sleeve just enough to look at her. “What does that mean?”
“It means she doesn’t think books should be used for anything except reading.”
Briar stared.
Aria stared back.
“Aria,” Briar said again, even more disappointed.
Aria clutched her chest. “Brilliant.”
“You can’t use books for other things.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’re books.”
“That’s not an argument.”
“Yes, it is.”
“It’s a description.”
Briar opened her mouth, paused, and seemed to realise she was being pulled into something ridiculous. “What did you use one for?”
“A shield.”
“A shield?”
“In my defence, someone threw something at me.”
“What did they throw?”
“A sweet.”
Briar closed her eyes.
“It was hard,” Aria said.
“It was a sweet.”
“It had corners.”
“Sweets don’t have corners.”
“This one did.”
“No, it didn’t.”
“You weren’t there.”
“I can imagine.”
“You’re assuming the sweet’s shape without evidence.”
Briar gave her the sternest look Aria had ever seen from someone half-hidden in sleeves.
Aria loved it immediately.
“You’re funny,” she said.
Briar flushed. “You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep being funny.”
“I’m not usually.”
“Maybe people are bad at noticing.”
That quieted Briar again, but differently this time.
She looked down at the table, at her notes and the open Herbology book and the quill still partly wedged between two bits of parchment. Her fingers reached for it slowly.
“Maybe,” she said.
Aria sat down again, softer this time, though softness on Aria always looked like it had been smuggled in beneath noise.
“Do you have friends?” she asked.
Briar’s hand tightened around the quill.
The answer was there before she said anything.
Aria recognised that too.
Briar shrugged. “Not many proper ones.”
“People are stupid.”
Briar glanced up.
Aria’s face was very serious now, which almost made her look stranger than when she was grinning. “They are. If they didn’t decide to be friends with you, that’s them being stupid.”
Briar’s mouth parted slightly.
For a moment, she looked younger than twelve. Younger and hopeful in a way she clearly did not want anyone to notice.
“Do you mean that?” she asked quietly.
Aria frowned. “Yes.”
“Oh.”
“I don’t say things I don’t mean.”
Briar blinked.
Aria paused.
“I mean, I do,” she admitted. “All the time. But not that.”
Briar’s smile came back, small but real.
Aria leaned forward again, elbows on the table, face close enough that Briar had to lean back slightly. “I told you. We’re best friends now.”
Briar went still.
“Best friends?” she repeated.
Aria nodded.
“We only just met.”
“I’m quick.”
“That’s very quick.”
“I’m efficient. Like the biting plants.”
Briar looked at her.
The hope was back again, bright and careful and afraid of itself.
“You want to be best friends?” Briar asked.
Aria shrugged, as if it was easy. As if it had not occurred to her that it could matter. “Yeah. You’re cute and you know about violent plants and you don’t know Barty, which means I get to tell you how annoying he is before he can trick you.”
Briar’s cheeks went red again. “I’m not cute.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I’m not.”
“You are. Like a nervous owl.”
“That’s not cute.”
“It is if you like owls.”
“Do you like owls?”
“Sometimes. When they’re not judging me.”
Briar let out another little laugh, then looked down at her notes and back up at Aria. “I’ve never had someone decide that before.”
“What?”
“That we were best friends.”
Aria tilted her head. “Good or bad?”
Briar’s grip on the quill loosened.
“Good,” she said, so quietly it was almost swallowed by the library. “I think.”
Aria grinned.
It was not soft anymore. It was victorious. Bright enough to cause problems.
“Good,” she said. “Then that’s settled.”
“I don’t know if it works like that.”
“It does now.”
Briar nodded slowly, as if accepting a rule in a game she did not fully understand but wanted very much to keep playing.
“All right,” she said.
Aria slapped one hand flat on the table in triumph.
Several people turned.
Briar flinched.
Aria immediately ducked down behind the books.
From somewhere near the front, Madam Pince’s voice cut through the air again. “Who is making that noise?”
Briar went pale.
Aria lowered herself until only her eyes were visible over the edge of the table.
“Don’t move,” she whispered.
Briar whispered back, panicked, “You made the noise.”
“I know.”
“Why can’t I move?”
“Because we’re invisible.”
“We’re not invisible.”
“Emotionally.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“It means commit.”
Briar looked like she was going to either laugh or cry.
Footsteps moved somewhere beyond the shelves.
Aria’s eyes glittered.
Briar sat very still, hands folded over her notes, trying to look like a perfectly ordinary Hufflepuff doing perfectly ordinary homework and not someone harbouring a fugitive beneath her study table.
The footsteps passed.
Madam Pince’s shadow slid along the far aisle, thin and severe.
Aria held her breath.
Briar held hers too.
For one strange, suspended moment, they were silent together.
Then the footsteps faded.
Aria slowly rose from beneath the table like a ghoul emerging from a grave.
Briar pressed her sleeve to her mouth.
“Don’t laugh,” Aria whispered.
Briar made a muffled squeaking sound.
“Briar.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re going to get us caught.”
“You got us caught.”
“We didn’t get caught.”
“Nearly.”
“Nearly doesn’t count.”
“It absolutely counts.”
“No. Only actual consequences count.”
“That is a terrible way to live.”
Aria considered this. “Is it?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
Briar blinked, surprised by the easy acceptance.
Then Aria grinned again. “I’ll try your way if you try mine.”
Briar looked wary. “What’s your way?”
“Do things before you get scared out of them.”
Briar’s expression shifted.
That one landed too.
Aria did not know all of Briar’s silences yet. She did not know what the girl feared, what she wanted, what she kept tucked behind her teeth. She did not know the shape of her loneliness, not properly. But she knew the look of someone who wanted the world and had been teaching herself to ask for less.
Briar looked at her for a long time.
“What’s my way, then?” she asked.
Aria looked down at the Herbology book. “Actually learn something before poking it.”
Briar gave her a startled smile. “That’s not a bad way.”
“I know. That’s why we’re best friends. Between us, we’re one sensible person.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“No, probably not. But we can fake it.”
Briar’s smile widened.
Aria pointed at the book. “Right. Teach me about the plant band.”
“Devil’s Snare?”
“Yes. Awful name, brilliant name. Go.”
Briar shifted in her chair.
It was a tiny movement, but it changed everything. She stopped curling inward quite so much. Her shoulders lowered. Her elbows came onto the table. Her face bent over the page, half-hidden by her curls, but now she was hiding because she was thinking, not because she was afraid.
“It likes dark, damp places,” Briar said. “And it traps things by wrapping around them.”
Aria leaned closer, fascinated. “How tight?”
“Tight enough that struggling makes it worse.”
“That’s rude.”
“It’s clever.”
“You’re defending the murder plant.”
“It’s not a murder plant.”
“It absolutely is.”
“It’s just doing what it’s made to do.”
Aria’s face softened with sudden, odd approval. “I like that.”
Briar glanced at her. “What?”
“Doing what you’re made to do.”
Briar looked down again. “What are you made to do?”
Aria didn’t answer straight away.
For once, she was quiet long enough that the library seemed to settle around them. Dust drifted in a sunbeam. Someone turned a page nearby. Far away, Madam Pince cleared her throat like a warning bell.
Aria tapped her fingers against the table.
Then she smiled, crooked and bright.
“Bother people.”
Briar laughed.
Aria laughed too.
The sound was too loud again, but this time Briar did not flinch as much. She looked scared for half a second, then delighted, then scared because she was delighted. Aria saw the whole thing happen across her face and decided, with complete and reckless certainty, that Briar Rosewood was the most interesting person in the library.
Possibly the whole common room.
Possibly all of second year.
Barty was going to be furious.
Good.
Aria leaned both elbows on the table and dropped her chin into her hands. “So if it grabs you, you have to stop fighting?”
“Yes.”
“That’s stupid. I’m terrible at that.”
“I can tell.”
“Rude.”
“You asked.”
“I didn’t.”
“You sort of did.”
Aria narrowed her eyes. “Best friends aren’t meant to betray each other this early.”
Briar looked startled again, but then she smiled, shy and pleased at the words.
“Sorry,” she said.
“No, don’t be. It was funny.”
Briar’s smile stayed.
Aria liked it there.
The afternoon moved slowly around them. The library kept its old warm hush, the kind that pressed down over heads and shoulders and tried to make children into obedient little shadows. Outside the windows, the sky was pale and silver. Inside, dust turned lazily in the light.
Aria talked.
Briar answered.
Then Briar talked.
Actually talked.
Once she started, once she realised Aria was not pretending to listen, that Aria genuinely wanted to know about dangerous plants and soil and traps and things that survived by becoming stranger than the world expected, Briar unfolded by careful inches.
She told Aria about leaves that snapped shut. About sticky surfaces and pitcher-shaped traps. About magical vines that curled towards warmth and movement. About why some plants were misunderstood because people only cared that they were dangerous, not that they were clever.
Aria listened with her whole restless body.
She sat. She leaned. She perched sideways on the chair. She stretched across the table again with her legs kicking up behind her until Briar hissed at her to get down. She got down for almost a minute. She bounced one foot. She tapped the edge of the book. She interrupted constantly.
“So it drowns them?”
“Sort of.”
“In itself?”
“In liquid, yes.”
“Metal.”
“What?”
“That’s very metal.”
“It’s a plant.”
“A metal plant.”
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“It means I respect it.”
Briar, to her own visible shock, began correcting her without shrinking afterwards.
“No, that’s not how it works.”
“No, don’t touch that picture, it folds out.”
“No, Aria, you can’t feed a dangerous plant bits of toast.”
“No, I don’t think Madam Sprout would let you keep one under your bed.”
“No, biting people is not a personality.”
“It could be,” Aria argued.
“It shouldn’t be.”
“That’s not the same thing.”
“Aria.”
“There it is again,” Aria said happily. “You’re getting really good at that.”
Briar rolled her eyes.
It was small and nervous and barely an eye roll at all.
Aria still gasped as if she’d been mortally wounded.
“Did you just roll your eyes at me?”
“No.”
“You did.”
“I didn’t.”
“You’re corrupted already.”
“I am not.”
“My influence is powerful.”
“You’ve been here twenty minutes.”
“Twenty very important minutes.”
Briar smiled down at her book, and the smile did not disappear right away.
Aria watched it with a strange, fizzy feeling in her chest.
She had not expected this.
She had expected to annoy someone. She had expected to be funny until the silence went away. She had expected, maybe, to get chased out by Madam Pince and spend the rest of the afternoon wandering corridors alone, looking for Lucas or Barty or something to kick.
She had not expected Briar.
Briar with her huge hair and huge jumper and tiny laugh.
Briar who looked scared of being noticed and then spoke about carnivorous plants like they were misunderstood creatures deserving of legal defence.
Briar who said Aria’s name like a warning and made it sound good.
Aria decided she was absolutely keeping her.
“I’m going to sit with you at dinner,” Aria announced.
Briar looked up too quickly. “What?”
“At dinner. I’m sitting with you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
“You usually sit with—”
“Barty,” Aria said. “Yes. He’ll live.”
“Won’t he mind?”
“Yes.”
Briar blinked. “And that’s fine?”
“That’s funny.”
Briar chewed her bottom lip. “I don’t want to annoy anyone.”
“Then you’re going to hate being my friend.”
Briar looked worried.
Aria leaned forward again, gentler this time. “You won’t annoy him. I’ll annoy him. I always annoy him. It’s good for his character.”
“I don’t know him.”
“Exactly. You’re innocent. Stay that way as long as possible.”
Briar’s brows knitted together. “You make him sound awful.”
“He is awful.”
“But he’s your friend?”
“My only friend,” Aria said.
She said it too quickly.
Too carelessly.
Briar noticed.
Aria hated that she noticed and liked that she noticed at the same time.
Briar’s voice went soft. “Your only one?”
Aria shrugged hard, as if trying to throw the truth off her shoulders. “Well. Was.”
Briar stared at her.
Aria stared at the book.
The moment sat between them, small and glowing.
Then Briar smiled.
Not shyly this time.
Still small, still careful, but real all the way through.
“Was,” she repeated.
Aria looked at her.
Briar’s cheeks went pink, but she did not take it back.
Aria’s grin came slowly, bright as a lit match.
“Exactly,” she said. “Was.”
Briar’s smile grew.
Then, from the far end of the aisle, came the unmistakable creak of Madam Pince’s shoes.
Briar stiffened.
Aria’s head snapped towards the sound.
Another creak.
Closer.
A shadow moved between shelves.
Briar whispered, “She’s coming.”
Aria slid halfway out of her chair. “Right.”
“What do we do?”
“Depends. Are you loyal?”
Briar looked panicked. “What?”
“Best friend test.”
“This is a terrible time for a test.”
“All the best tests are terrible times.”
The footsteps came closer.
Briar looked from Aria to the aisle, then back again, horrified and thrilled and clearly wondering when her quiet afternoon had become this.
Aria ducked beneath the table.
Briar froze.
Aria’s hand shot up and tugged Briar’s robe hem down slightly, making the fabric drape further over the front.
“Natural,” Aria whispered from under the table.
“This is not natural,” Briar whispered back.
“Read.”
“What?”
“Read like you’ve never committed a crime in your life.”
“I haven’t!”
“Perfect. Use that.”
Briar grabbed the Herbology book with both hands and stared at it with such ferocious innocence that Aria nearly laughed from underneath the table.
Madam Pince appeared at the end of the aisle.
She was a narrow, severe woman with the air of someone who believed dust motes should request permission before drifting. Her gaze swept over the table, the books, the notes, Briar’s too-wide eyes.
“Miss Rosewood,” she said.
Briar swallowed. “Madam Pince.”
“Are you studying?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
Briar’s gaze flickered down for the briefest fraction of a second.
Aria, crouched under the table with one hand over her mouth, stared up at her through the hanging edge of the robe.
Briar looked back at Madam Pince.
“Yes,” she said.
Aria’s eyes widened.
Madam Pince narrowed hers.
Briar turned a page with a shaking hand. “Herbology.”
Madam Pince stepped closer.
Aria slowly pulled her knees tighter to her chest.
One of her shoes squeaked faintly against the floor.
Briar coughed.
It was the least convincing cough in the history of coughing.
Madam Pince looked at her.
Briar coughed again, smaller. “Sorry.”
“Hm.”
The librarian’s eyes scanned the floor.
Aria held herself so still it felt physically insulting.
Briar leaned forward slightly, letting her hair fall more around her face, her robe slipping just enough to cover the front of the table better.
Madam Pince’s eyes paused.
Aria did not breathe.
Then Madam Pince looked back at Briar.
“Keep your voice down,” she said sharply.
Briar nodded. “Yes, Madam Pince.”
“And do not let Miss Parkinson in if you see her.”
Under the table, Aria bit her sleeve to stop herself making a noise.
Briar’s eyes went enormous.
“No,” she said, voice cracking slightly. “I won’t.”
Madam Pince gave her one last suspicious look, then turned and swept away down the aisle.
The footsteps faded.
Silence returned.
For three whole seconds, neither girl moved.
Then Aria crawled out from under the table, hair mussed, eyeliner slightly more destroyed than before, face lit with pure admiration.
“You lied,” she whispered.
Briar looked horrified. “I know.”
“To a teacher.”
“I know.”
“For me.”
“I know.”
Aria slapped both hands over her mouth, eyes sparkling.
Briar buried her face in her sleeves. “Don’t look at me.”
“I’m looking at you forever.”
“Don’t.”
“You’re incredible.”
“I feel sick.”
“That’s the thrill of crime.”
“I don’t like it.”
“You will.”
“I won’t.”
“You might.”
“I won’t.”
Aria leaned over the table, practically vibrating. “You protected me.”
“You were under the table.”
“You protected me under the table.”
Briar lowered her sleeves just enough to glare weakly. “Because I didn’t want you to get in trouble.”
Aria’s face shifted.
The grin stayed, but something under it went soft and strange.
“Oh,” she said.
Briar looked suddenly shy again. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“It’s not nothing.”
“It is.”
“Your face said something.”
Aria’s grin snapped wider. “Now you’re copying me.”
“I am not.”
“You are. Best friend behaviour.”
Briar looked down, but this time she was smiling too much to hide it properly.
Aria dropped into the chair again and folded her arms on the table. “Right. It’s official.”
“What is?”
“You’re my best friend.”
“You already said that.”
“Now it’s official official. You lied to authority. That’s binding.”
Briar looked alarmed. “Is it?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think friendship works like that.”
“You keep saying that like friendship has rules.”
“Doesn’t it?”
Aria thought about this.
Then she shrugged. “Maybe. But we can make better ones.”
Briar was quiet.
Her gaze flicked over Aria’s badly streaked hair, the smudged eyeliner, the ink on her wrist, the stretched sleeves, the grin that looked like trouble and rescue all at once.
Then she looked down at her own baggy jumper, her curled fingers, the open book between them.
“What rules?” she asked.
Aria’s grin softened.
“First rule,” she said. “You have to tell me about any plant that can kill someone.”
Briar huffed. “That can’t be the first rule.”
“It is.”
“No.”
“Fine. Second rule.”
“What’s the first?”
Aria leaned close over the table again, close enough that Briar could see the little uneven places where her eyeliner had smudged at the corners of her eyes.
“First rule,” Aria said, quieter, “you don’t have to sit alone unless you want to.”
Briar went very still.
Outside the library windows, the afternoon light thinned a little further, turning silver at the edges.
Briar looked at Aria like she had just been handed something fragile and did not know where to put it.
Then she nodded.
Only once.
But she nodded.
“All right,” she whispered.
Aria nodded back, firm and satisfied. “Good.”
“What’s the second rule?”
“Plants that can kill someone.”
Briar laughed again, and this time she did not hide it fast enough.
Madam Pince shouted, “Quiet!”
Both girls ducked at once.
They looked at each other over the table.
Aria’s grin broke first.
Briar’s followed.
And there, in the back of the library, behind shelves of old books and beneath the sharp nose of a librarian who would have thrown Aria Parkinson out by the collar if she had known, something bright and improbable took root.
Not loudly.
Not properly.
Not in any way that would have looked important to anyone passing by.
Just two second-year Hufflepuffs hunched over a Herbology book, whispering about biting plants, trying not to laugh, one girl glowing with mischief and the other slowly, carefully unfolding beneath it.
A bad influence and a quiet accomplice.
A spark and a garden.
Aria Parkinson had entered the library because she was banned, bored, and lonely.
Briar Rosewood had come there because it was quiet, because quiet was safe, because alone was easier when one could pretend it was a choice.
By the time the light faded and the dinner bells began to echo faintly through the castle, neither of them was alone anymore.
Aria shoved herself up from the chair first, nearly knocking it backwards.
Briar caught it with a panicked whisper. “Careful.”
“You’re going to say that to me a lot,” Aria said.
“I can already tell.”
“Come on.”
Briar blinked. “Where?”
“Dinner.”
“Oh.”
“With me.”
Briar hesitated, hands hovering over her books. “Should I put these back?”
Aria looked at the open book, then towards the shelves, then towards the front desk where Madam Pince waited like a curse in human form.
“Yes,” she said, with enormous reluctance. “Because if I touch them, apparently that’s a crime.”
“It is if you use them as shields.”
“One time.”
Briar gathered the books carefully, holding them to her chest.
Aria watched her for a moment, then reached over and plucked a loose curl away from where it had caught on the corner of one cover.
Briar froze.
Aria let the curl go. It bounced back into place.
“Your hair’s brilliant,” Aria said.
Briar went pink to the tips of her ears. “It’s messy.”
“So am I.”
“That’s different.”
“No, it’s not.” Aria smiled. “Come on, Briar Rosewood.”
Briar held the books tighter and followed her into the aisle.
They moved quietly at first.
Then Aria got bored of quiet and began whispering again almost immediately.
“So what’s the third rule?”
“We have more rules?”
“Yes.”
“Shouldn’t we decide them together?”
Aria stopped.
She turned slowly.
Briar looked startled by her own boldness again, but she did not take it back.
Aria grinned.
“Fine,” she said. “Third rule. We decide the rules together.”
Briar smiled.
“Fourth rule,” she said, surprising both of them. “Don’t shout hello behind me in the library.”
Aria wrinkled her nose. “Terrible rule.”
“It’s a good rule.”
“It’s oppressive.”
“It’s reasonable.”
“It’s censorship.”
“It’s not.”
“It is.”
Briar’s smile turned almost brave. “Then I’m censoring you.”
Aria stared at her.
Then she laughed so hard she had to clap both hands over her mouth and bend double in the aisle.
Briar panicked, glancing towards the front desk. “Aria!”
Aria wheezed silently, shoulders shaking.
“Stop laughing!”
“I can’t.”
“Madam Pince will hear you.”
“She can hear joy and it offends her.”
“Aria.”
That only made Aria laugh harder.
Briar was trying very hard not to laugh too by the time they reached the shelves where the Herbology books belonged. She put them back in their proper places with careful hands while Aria hovered beside her, rocking on her heels, sleeves dangling, face too bright for the dim aisle.
When Briar turned back, Aria was already waiting.
Not walking ahead.
Not disappearing.
Waiting.
Briar noticed that too.
Aria held out one hand, then seemed to realise too late that it might be strange. Her fingers twitched. She nearly pulled back.
Briar looked at the offered hand.
Then she shifted her books under one arm and took it.
Aria’s grin returned at full force.
“There,” she said. “Best friends.”
Briar’s smile was shy and enormous.
“Best friends,” she agreed.
They slipped towards the library exit together, badly and obviously, with Aria ducking behind shelves whenever Madam Pince turned and Briar trying to look as if she was not escorting a banned student out of the scene of a crime.
At the doorway, Aria paused and glanced back at the library.
Then she looked at Briar.
“I’m coming back tomorrow,” she whispered.
Briar’s eyes widened. “You’re banned.”
“I know.”
“That’s a bad idea.”
“Yes.”
“You’ll get caught.”
“Maybe.”
Briar hesitated.
Then, very quietly, she said, “The back table’s usually free after lunch.”
Aria went still.
Slowly, delightedly, she turned her head.
Briar’s cheeks flushed, but her chin lifted just a little.
Aria smiled like the sun had learned how to be wicked.
“Briar Rosewood,” she whispered, “you are so much worse than you look.”
Briar tried to look disapproving.
Failed.
And together, hand in hand, they ran for dinner.