-1Raven Wolfe-Smith was eighteen years old, and a failure.

In Charms, the only way she could make a teacup dance was by poking it with her wand. She had smuggled the hedgehog she was supposed to be Transfiguring out of class and kept it in a box under her bed, until Filch found it a week later. She had tried Divination, but all she had gotten out of it was a headache from the incense fumes. None of this really bothered her. Raven thought wand-waving and incantation-chanting was stupid. Just because something was in Latin didn't make it magic.

In appearance, she was very much a Slytherin - dark hair, pale skin, dark and suspicious eyes. She had a fairly slight figure, and people didn't pay much attention to her. That was fine with her, because Raven for the most part thought that other people were idiots.

She was currently walking down one of the spiral staircases on her way to the Entrance Hall. Breakfast wasn't for a while yet, but Raven didn't want to be around when the other girls in her dormitory woke up. The unspoken agreement between all of them was that Raven stayed out of their way, and they ignored her. Hiding a yawn behind her hand, she reached for the handrail, and stopped.

"Come on, Longbottom," she heard Draco Maolfoy drawl, somewhere at the foot of the staircase. "Want a taste of what your parents had to go through?"

There was the sounds of a scuffle, a thud, and a yelp. Malfoy laughed.

Looking over the banister, Raven could see Crabbe and Goyle, holding between them a moon-faced boy Raven remembered having seen sitting at the Gryffindor table. He wasn't in good shape. Blood tricked from his nose and the corner of his mouth, he was breathing heavily, and he didn't seem to be able to stand. As Raven watched, he shuddered under the impact of another invisible blow. A small cut appeared on his scalp, and started to bleed.

Malfoy laughed, and stepped out from under the spiral staircase, directly below Raven. He leaned towards the boy.

"Bet you wish you had your friends here to protect you, don't you?" he said, with savage pleasure. "The Potter-brat, and his Mudblood friend…"

Raven wasn't sure what to do. On one hand, there was Neville Longbottom, a pathetic person who somehow reminded her of a baby rodent, all pink and squeaking and helpless. Maybe this confrontation with Malfoy would teach him not to go around with 'Victim' written all over his plump face. But on the other hand…

On the other hand, there was Draco Malfoy, a sneering, preening bully who would actually go out of his way to mock her. Just because she was a Squib. No - it was because she was a Pureblood, and a Squib, and the idea that hereditary and good breeding wasn't enough to ensure magical talent made Malfoy and a lot of the other Slytherins very uncomfortable.

Longbottom squirmed.

"Pr- Protego," he whimpered, flinching as Malfoy leaned closer. His eyes, blackened with bruises, followed the movement of the wand Malfoy was dangling in front of his nose.

"Want it, Longbottom?" he said gleefully. "I can't think what a Squib would do with this…"

He spun it around and tossed it into the air. Raven leaned out and caught it.

It took Malfoy a rather long time to clue into what had happened. He looked up.

"Leave him alone," said Raven, annoyed. "He's harmless."

Malfoy was surprised and angry, but he recovered enough to sneer. "We're only having a bit of fun." He laughed. "Come on. Join in. Slytherins stick together, remember?"

"True," said Raven. "Hey, kid…"

He looked up at her, panting with fear and pain.

"Catch."

"No!" Malfoy yelled. He dove forwards as Raven tossed the wand, but Longbottom's fingers closed over it first. A determined look appeared on his chubby face.

"What do you think you're doing, you stupid-" Malfoy was interrupted by a Stunning spell he had to duck to avoid.

"Squibs have got to stick together, too," said Raven.

Crabbe swung a fist like a matured ham at Longbottom, and might've made contact if Raven hadn't jumped over the banister and landed on his shoulders. They both fell on the ground, and Raven had to duck and roll as Goyle came at her as well.

Malfoy was spitting out every curse he could think of, but Longbottom's shielding spells were holding up well. Crabbe, still lying on the floor, grabbed Raven, but she stepped on his face and he let go. He screamed, and she felt a twinge of self-satisfaction. Goyle tried to punch her, but she sidestepped and dug her fingernails into his arm. She twisted savagely, leaving deep red indentations in his fat skin and making him howl.

But Raven was in trouble. Busy ducking both Crabbe and Goyle, she had an idea that it was only a matter of time before -

Dodging Crabbe's grasping hands, she stepped right in the way of Goyle's fist and fell backwards, hard. The two thugs grabbed her by the arms, and pulled her upright.

"Incarcerous!' Malfoy yelled, and Longbottom's luck finally ran out. Thick ropes lashed themselves around him, pinning his arms to his sides. Malfoy muttered something under his breath, and Longbottom whimpered as the ropes tightened themselves a couple notches.

Snarling, he turned to Raven.

"You bloody traitor," he hissed, his face white with rage. Crabbe and Goyle stepped away from her, which couldn't be good.

"You… Mudblood," Malfoy continued.

"Both of my parents were wizards, actually," said Raven helpfully, edging quietly backwards.

Malfoy's lip curled in a sneer. "You're still a blood traitor." He raised his wand. "And you know what happens to traitors... Cruciatus!" he yelled, but a second voice spoke as well.

"Protego."

A shielding spell sprang up around Raven. It didn't stop her from trying to punch Malfoy in the face, whereupon she yelped as she was abruptly pulled into the air and suspended upside down by one ankle.

Severus Snape, his face white with rage, came striding out of the shadows, his wand pointing at Raven.

"What is the meaning of this?"

Snape was furious, but he couldn't help staring, at the girl in particular. He had felt the fear and hatred that had sprung into her mind the second she had seen Malfoy's wand pointed at her. And he hadn't even been trying.

Malfoy recovered first. "Professor," he said. "She attacked m-"

"What do you think you are doing?" Snape demanded. "Using an Unforgivable curse on school grounds?"

"It was self-defence-"

"I was watching you," he said, through gritted teeth. "It was not self-defence." Malfoy fell silent. "I suppose you would like a one-way ticket to Azkaban?"

The boy flushed a deep red at the reference to his father.

"Release Longbottom."

The ropes disappeared. Neville Longbottom looked up at Snape, trembling. Snape felt the fear radiating off his fat body, and was disgusted.

"Duelling in the school hallways," he muttered. "Cursing a fellow Slytherin…"

"She started it!" Malfoy yelled. "She took his side!"

"I know she did," said Snape, breathing heavily with suppressed anger. "All of you, go back to your common rooms and consider yourselves lucky you didn't come to the attention of any other teacher."

Longbottom looked like he was about to cry at the blatant unfairness of it all, but he hurried away, looking fearfully over his shoulder at Malfoy. Malfoy, his face still crimson, left more slowly.

Raven, however, was still dangling upside-down.

"Are you going to let me down?" she asked hopefully.

"I can see you don't have the common sense you were born with," he snapped. "Even you should know enough not to want Draco Malfoy as an enemy."

Raven stopped trying to free herself and dangled in midair. "I don't want Draco Malfoy as a friend, either," she said. "I want Neville Longbottom as a friend."

His lip curled. "That useless, cowardly lump?"

"He's good at Herbology, and he's stupidly loyal to anyone who's nice to him. Draco Malfoy, on the other hand…" She paused to blow her falling hair out of her face. "Him and his father, they don't need anyone. Not even you. I'm sure it was nice, having Malfoy Juniour as head of his class in Potions and a Prefect and everything, but I doubt that NEWTs are going to count for much once Lord Voldemort is back in power…"

In the many years that Raven Wolfe-Smith had been in his House, Snape had spoken to her only a handful of times. He resented hearing her telling him the truth now.

"Do not," he said, loudly, "say his name."

"Whose, Voldemort's? Whyever not? It's a stupid name, anyways. Voldemort. Vol de mort. Flight of the dead. It sounds like the title of a painting by that man, Goya…"

"DO NOT SAY THE DARK LORD'S NAME," Snape shouted. Raven shut up, and looked at him in surprise. "There is a war on," he continued, snarling.

"I know. I've been knitting socks," she said, seriously. She twisted around so she started to spin in a circle.

"What do you think you were doing, getting involved in other people's business?" Snape asked, his voice once again smooth. "It would have been more… appropriate… to let Longbottom and Malfoy solve their own differences."

Raven spun idly in a circle. "Will you let me down now?"

Snape watched her expressionlessly, his lank black hair falling like a curtain across his face. "No."

She kicked fruitlessly at the spell. "Please," she demanded. Snape could feel the frustration growing in her mind. He was deliberately goading her, and when she made eye contact with him, he gave her mind a tug and waited for her memories to unravel right into his lap.

What he wanted were her weaknesses. A recent embarrassment, some event to confront her with, to show her that she wasn't so superior after all.

What he got was pain, as his head suddenly pounded with blood, his abdominal muscles ached and his ankle hurt like hell. And he was dizzy.

He abruptly broke the spell. Raven fell four and a half feet to the floor and lay there rubbing her ankle. Snape stared at her.

"Thanks," she said, apparently unaware that he'd been inside her head. Staggering awkwardly to her feet, she hopped around in a circle, trying to restore circulation to her foot. "Nice work with the shielding spell, by the way."

"What is wrong with your arm?" he demanded, abruptly.

Raven looked at him. "Nothing."

She was lying. Snape had felt the deep, searing ache in her left arm, just below her shoulder. It had reminded him of something…

"If that's all, I'll be going," Raven was saying. "Good morning." she added.

Snape stared after her. To his growing frustration, he couldn't remember a single thing about her. All the years she had been in his Potion's class, she had been polite, obedient, a good student - and somehow invisible.

But the memory of the pain in her arm bothered him. Absently, he rubbed his left forearm, where the Dark Mark had been branded years before. It had been hurting more than ever, lately.