A girl walked with a sure gait past the classrooms in the direction of the Great Hall. Her robes, marked by the Gryffindor crest, hid a mahogany wand of dragon heartstring. She turned right, checked that no one was in sight, and whipped her wand out. She unlocked the broom closet door, stepped in to pick a broom, and left through the window.

Nyssa Aurelia was a fifth year student at Hogwarts. She came from Beauxbatons two years ago after her Muggle-born mother died of lung cancer to start a fresh life. Moving from France to England actually helped her more than she had expected. For one, she could never really fit in, because she was born in London and was brought up under a different culture. She never really understood the grace and passiveness of the Beauxbaton girls, so she never really managed to create strong ties with them. Hogwarts, however, had been more accommodating. Nyssa quickly found good friends in her House and classes, and she was on friendly terms with most of the Gryffindors and Ravenclaws, though she seldom talked to the Hufflepuffs. The Slytherins were just difficult and some were arrogant. No doubt, this Malfoy boy was the worst of the lot, usually travelling with two overweight cronies or a whole gang of discriminatory Slytherins. Hogwarts probably had one of the highest rates of blood discrimination. Nevertheless, she was grateful to be back in her birthplace.

She mounted her broom and shot into the sky, flying around the school grounds. She had a two-hour break and wanted some alone time because one of her closest friends, Hermione, was having a loud argument with Ron over the relevance of house-elves in the future magical world (Harry wasn't around because he had to go for Potions remedial).

Nyssa landed on one of the less-angled rooftops and sat down, gazing at the cold lake nine floors below. Her mind wandered from Arithmancy to Herbology, to Neville Longbottom, and finally to Draco Malfoy, where her foot gave an involuntary kick at the thought of his permanent smirk and perfect hair. Then she realised she'd kicked the broomstick off its sitting place and it was rolling towards the edge of the roof.

No, no, no!

She rose to her feet tried to chase it.

"Drat," Nyssa cursed quietly as she watched the broom drop.

Draco Malfoy was making a wide turn on his Nimbus during Quidditch practice when movement to the right caught his eye. It looked like something brown falling off one of the castle roofs. As he flew closer for inspection, he saw Nyssa standing at the edge of the roof watching the broom as it hit the ground.

Ha! She's stranded on the roof.

To his surprise, she pulled out her wand and pointed it sharply at the broom. Draco could see her mouthing the words, "Accio, broom!" As the broom zoomed up towards her, she leapt off the rooftop edge, let herself freefall for about four storeys before she landed squarely on the broomstick and flew away. Draco nearly gaped and decided to follow her from a distance. Quidditch practice was boring him anyway.

She flew past the west bridge and took a sharp corner around the Hufflepuff common room tower, careful not to fly past directly in front of any windows, then headed for the Hogwarts Lake while Draco hovered at the edge of the Forbidden Forest where he figured he'd be well-camouflaged by his green Quidditch uniform. It was a great distance away but it wasn't very far for him to see her; he had exceptional eyesight. He watched her skim lazily along the lake, peering at her reflection in the water surface. She let her hand touch the water, breaking its calm surface and sending little ripples in every direction. Suddenly, two giant tentacles shot up from the water in front of her. She looked up in surprise and spiralled upwards around the tentacles, rubbing them as they waved about in the air. Water from the tentacles was dripping off and onto her but she didn't seem to mind. When she reached the end of one of the tentacles, she dismounted her broom with an insane smile on her face and balanced on its tip.

What the - ?

When the Giant Squid decided it had had enough company, it slowly retracted its tentacles while Nyssa quickly mounted her broom and kicked off, speeding back towards the castle. Draco returned to the Pitch to practice, his mind half-occupied with Nyssa, the roof and the squid, and narrowly missed a Bludger to the broom handle.

"You smell like squid," Blaise sneered across the table at Nyssa in Potions class. Gryffindors and Slytherins usually had Potions together. Everybody knew Snape enjoyed having two extremes in his classes: The intelligent (Slytherins) and the maladapted (Gryffindors).

Nyssa 'accidentally' knocked over a bowl of ingredients into Blaise's lap as she reached for the cutting knife.

"Oh, really?" She mused.

"Ten points from Gryffindor!"

A series of grumbles erupted across the Potions room and several pairs of eyes rolled at the black-caped back of Professor Snape. Everyone knew that if Snape took points from Gryffindor, it was usually because of injustice, Harry Potter, or both. In this case, it was injustice. Nyssa started slicing her yellow algae.

"Well Blaise, I suppose that's what Mudbloods smell like when you come into lethal range of them," Draco drawled on autopilot from the adjacent table and Blaise shifted his seat a few inches away from her. With Nyssa, you had to have strength in numbers because she'd retort every personal insult she could. The more Slytherins there are, the faster she'd get tired and give up.

It wasn't Nyssa's choice to sit with Blaise in Potions - she was late because Peeves the poltergeist had been throwing banana peels at a group of first years and she felt morally compelled to right things; by the time she came in, every other table was full.

"Don't use that term with me," Nyssa frowned at the algae, her slicing pace slightly faster. She scanned the room for Harry, Ron and Hermione, and found them behind, one table to the right. Ron was already watching her table like a hawk. Hermione was busy stirring Harry's potion the right way while he looked blankly into the cauldron.

"Aurelia, Mudbloods don't tell me what to do," Draco stated, "hey, isn't Aurelia a first name? Nyssa Aurelia. Like Apple Pear." Two tables of Slytherins burst into sniggers, except for Pansy Parkinson, whose laughter could pass for a high-pitched hyena.

"Bother someone else, Malfoy," Nyssa's slicing speed had increased to violent chopping.

Draco gave Crabbe and Goyle the usual signal – to advance on Gryffindors, weaker people and random targets for the purpose of making them feel small. They shuffled to Nyssa and towered menacingly over her.

"Lay off," she growled.

"Yeah, lay off," echoed Ron. He had walked to Nyssa's table and stood behind her, facing the four Slytherins: Malfoy, Zabini, Crabbe and Goyle. The six of them stood upright for some time, glaring at each other venomously.

"Fif-ty points from Gryf-fin-dor," everybody looked up at Snape, who had appeared behind Ron, "Miss Aurelia, your algae looks like pulp. If you have the cognitive ability to read, you would know that it is supposed to be finely sliced."

When Snape stalked away to another table, Nyssa sent a pleading look towards Hermoine, who was happy to give her the leftover sliced algae, since she had already brewed and bottled her potion.

"What are we making again?" Nyssa asked.

"Confusing Concoction," Hermione replied.

"Ah."