First Year
As soon as Alex Vause heaves her trunk into a blessedly empty compartment of the train, she starts rummaging around in it until she finds her long black Hogwarts robes. She pulls them on over her clothes, feeling a rush of relief as soon as she does. They're secondhand, slightly worn with a few loose threads at the edge, but it's nothing so obvious as the patches on her jeans and safety pins on the shoulder of her sweater. People probably won't even be able to tell.
In spite of herself, Alex slides to the edge of one of the seats and peers out the window, scanning the platform, both hoping and not hoping that her mom did was she asked - what she begged really - and went back to work, not waiting around just to watch the train pull away, which Alex had insisted would be pointless.
She doesn't see her anywhere in the crowd, and Alex feels a sharp pang of fear in her chest. She'd been horrifyingly close to crying when she hugged her mom goodbye, but self-preservation had taken over almost instantly. There are older kids all over the place, and she's not about to break down crying like some baby on the first day at a new school.
Though it's not just a new school, it's an entirely new world, and Alex hadn't been entirely sure she wanted to go. It means leaving her mom all alone, now, but Diane had insisted it would be ridiculous to turn down a school they didn't even have to pay for. The weird professor who came to explain it all to them had assured her, again and again, that it was the top wizarding school in their world, very prestigious, and no, they wouldn't have to pay for it. There was even a fund to help her pay for spellbooks and robes and wands.
Her mom had seemed even more amazed at how free everything was than by the revelation that her daughter could apparently do magic.
Alex pulls out her wand, the only genuinely brand new thing she has, and wraps her fingers around it, feeling the now familiar thrill of power speed through her bloodstream. The professor had told her that magic isn't allowed outside of school for underage wizards, which seems entirely and ridiculously unfair, but it hasn't stopped her from getting out the wand at least twenty times a day since she bought it last week.
"Um. Hi?"
Alex flicks her gaze up to see a blonde girl who's almost definitely a first year like her standing in the doorway of the compartment with a trunk and a birdcage with a white owl hooting inside. Alex stiffens a little, instinctive defenses flaring up. "Is that a question?"
"Uh. I guess. Is it okay if I sit here?"
The girl looks like she would be friends with Jessica Wedge and all her other rich friends at Alex's old school, but she sounds perfectly friendly and it makes Alex remember that she's wearing her robes, that no one has any reason to make fun of her here, and she relaxes a little. "Sure. Come on in."
"Thanks."
She pulls her trunk inside, jostling the cage against the doorway when she does. The owl makes a noise that's more cackle than hoot, fluttering its wings pointlessly in the limited space. Alex frowns in distaste, and the girl throws her a sheepish look. "Sorry."
"What is it with you people and birds?" Alex asks with a smirk. "I mean, do we really have to write with feathers?"
"Quills?" The girl looks surprised by the question. "Of course. What else would we use?"
"Pencils. Pens. Or, I don't know, you can't just think something and make it appear on the paper?"
"I don't think that's a spell," she says thoughtfully. "It'd be a good one, though."
The girl tilts her head at Alex, eyes shining with curiosity. "So your parents are really Muggles?"
Alex sighs. The professor kept using that word, and so did all the shopkeepers in Diagon Alley. She doesn't like it, it sounds like something out of a silly kids book. Her mom isn't a Muggle. Her mom is just her mom.
"I mean, my mom isn't magic."
"What about your dad?"
Alex feels herself tense. "I don't know. Never met him." She's proud of how casual it sounds, but of course she's been wondering, even more so than usual, ever since her Hogwarts finally brought some of the answers about herself.
"Oh." The girl gives her a small smile, like she's sorry for asking but not like she feels sorry for Alex. It makes Alex like her - and she's not used to liking other kids her age. "Did you ever do stuff accidentally?" The girl asks eagerly. "I was always making stuff break or sending stuff flying at brothers when I got mad...is it so weird to do that if you don't know you're magic?"
Alex had been worried about this, that her complete cluelessness about all this magic stuff would be just a brand new way to make her a freak at school, even though the professor had assured her that there were plenty of other Muggleborn students. But something about the way the girl asks makes it okay - like she's just as eager to learn about Alex's world as Alex is about this new one.
"Yeah, I did," Alex nodded. "I always thought it was something weird. Like, when the lights in our apartment were out - " Alex stops talking abruptly, feeling the heat rush to her face. If she tells this story, then she'll have to explain the part where her mother couldn't afford to pay the power bill, and then the camouflage of her robes would be completely useless. "Uh. It was a power outage, like in a storm or whatever. You'd flick the switch and it'd do nothing, but I could make the lamps work again. I knew it was me, even if I didn't know how." That had gone on for the whole entire month, and her mom had stopped paying the power bill for over a year, until they'd had to move to a new apartment. Diane could never explain it, but Alex at seven years old could have sworn she felt light flowing to her fingertips.
"Cool." A smile blooms on the other girls face, and Alex can see more questions swarming in her eyes, but they're interrupted when an older woman pushing a trolley cart slides open their compartment door.
"Anything from the trolley, loves?"
For half a second Alex wonders if it might be free like everything else so far, but then the blond girl jumps eagerly to her feet and orders, rummaging in her pockets for those weird huge coins. "Can I get a Cauldron Cake and a box of Berties, please?"
She pays and the old woman looks past her at Alex, smiling kindly. "Anything for you, dear?"
"Not hungry," she blurts out.
The girl looks back at her, smiling and oblivious. "You should get something, you've probably never had any of this, right?"
Alex has to fight not to glare at her. She can feel her face getting hot again. "I...I don't really have wizarding money yet. I mean, I only have regular money, I guess Muggle money, I never switched it out, so I can't really..." Damn it. She sounds like an idiot.
The girls smile is gone, and she looks embarrassed, but then she turns back to the trolley and says, "Actually can get another box of Bertie's...and three Chocolate Frogs...and two of the Pumpkin things...thanks." She hands over more money, and Alex kind of wants to get up and go to another compartment and start over with someone else, but then the blonde girl turns and grins at her and it's so not bitchy that Alex smiles back without meaning to.
She'd been sitting across from Alex, but now she sits down on the same bench seat and spread her purchases in the space between them. "Try some," she says, not like it's a big deal. She opens a bag of the jellybeans and asks curiously, "Is Muggle candy super different?"
So they swap facts about their respective favorite candies, and Alex samples some of everything, starting with the Every Flavor Beans to prove the blonde girl's insistence that they aren't the same as jelly beans, which she thinks sound a lot more boring.
The girl seems fascinated by anything muggle Alex talks about, and finally Alex starts asking tentative questions about Hogwarts.
"My older brother's in fifth year, so he told me how it works. We line up to put on the Hat to get started right away, even before the feast and everything."
"Sorted? Oh, wait, there are different houses, right?"
"Yeah. My whole family's always been in Ravenclaw. Like, all of them. So, uh, if I don't get put there, it'd be a big deal." She looks rattled for a second, nerves flicking across her face.
"Does being in Ravenclaw mean something?"
"Yeah. It's kind of the smart house." She makes a face, seeming to regret the phrasing. "Or, I guess, the people who like learning."
"So the nerd house," Alex says with a smirk.
"Hey!" She bites back a smile and throws a Chocolate Frog wrapper.
Alex grins and dodges it. "I didn't say I'm nota nerd." She does read a lot. Though Alex isn't sure how a hat would know that.
The other girl grins at that. "Maybe we'll be in the same house." Quickly, she adds, "But they're all fine."
"So if Ravenclaws are nerds..."
"Not nerds. Gryffindors are supposed to be brave...and the Hufflepuffs are loyal and hardworking."
"Most nerds are hardworking," Alex counters teasingly, but what she's thinking is her mom would have been a Hufflepuff. If she wasn't too much a muggle to get invited to this weird school. "Isn't there a fourth house?"
"Slytherin." She makes an automatic face.
"What, people don't like them?"
"Well. It's just...You-Know-Who was a Slytherin. And most of the Death Eaters." Alex vaguely remembers those terms, something the professor had said about two different wars in the wizarding world. "So they just have a bad reputation. But don't worry...I don't think there are any Muggleborns in Slytherin. They're all about pureblood."
"Great," Alex mutters. She's already worried she won't know enough to fit in here. Good to know people are going to judge her for something she can't even help. Again.
"Most people don't care at all, though," the girl says sincerely. Alex meets her eyes and realizes that she must be a pureblood (and, really, that doesn't sound like a horror movie word at all. These people are weird.) and obviously doesn't mind. "And if you have any questions, you can ask me...my brother told me a lot, and he's a prefect." .
"Thanks."
They smile at each other, then look away at the same time. For the first moment the whole trip, silence settles for awhile.
Then, out nowhere, the girl asks, "Are your glasses real?"
Alex gives her a strange look. "Yeah. Why wouldn't they be?"
"A lot of people wear fake glasses just to be cool. You know, like Harry Potter's."
She says the name with a sort of heavy reverence. Alex is going to have to skim her history textbooks before she even gets to class, apparently.
God, she's going to miss the freaking internet.
The blonde girl smiles kind of shyly. "I like yours."
Alex grins. "Yeah? Some girls at my old school thought they were nerdy."
"Oh, they'll definitely be cool here."
"Awesome. So which house is the cool house?"
The girl giggles, then jokes, "Whichever one I'm in, obviously."
"Nuh-uh, sorry. You already admitted to being a nerd."
She smiles, but then then it fades, her eyes skirting to the ground. "I'm...kind of nervous about getting sorted. I don't know what my parents will say if I'm in a different house."
"Well, if your whole family's in Ravenclaw, you should be fine, right?"
"I don't know. It's not always the same like that."
"It's a personality thing, right?"
"I guess..."
"So, do you think you're like the rest of your family?"
The girl frowns, looking like she's never stopped to consider the question. "I'm not sure."
Alex doesn't know how to reassure her from there, so she stays quiet. The truth is, she didn't really have friends at her old school. She's not really used to being one.
"What's your name?" The blonde girl asks suddenly, breaking the silence.
"Oh, shit, I didn't say it, did I?" The other girl starts a little at the cursing. "My name's Alex."
"I'm Piper."
They smile at each other for a second.
"I hope we're in the same house."
"Even if I'm not in Ravenclaw?"
Piper hesitates, and then nods. "But maybe you will be though."
"Maybe." Alex pauses, then shrugs with exaggerated modesty. "I am really smart."
Piper's whole face scrunches up when she laughs, loudly, and the sound of has Alex practically glowing with pride. It reminds her of what it felt like to have light in her fingertips, except now it's in her chest.
Maybe she'll be good at this here. Making friends. Having friends.
It sort of maybe seems like she already has one.
Alex and Piper stick close together when they get off the train, take boats across the lake, and finally file into the Great Hall to be sorted, but they're both too dumbstruck by the Great Hall itself to do more then exchange wide-eyed looks. Alex is glad Piper seems as awed by the place as she is.
They start calling students by alphabetical order, and for the first time Alex feels anxiety pulling at her stomach as she realizes she'll be one of the last to go. She tries to tell herself it's fine, it's not like she's got a family legacy to uphold, she has no reason to care where she gets sorted anyway.
It doesn't take long for them to call out, "Chapman, Piper!" She looks scared and pale and she throws Alex a nervous glance just before she walks up to the stool. Alex makes herself smile at her.
Piper sits on the stool, puts on the hat and then clasps her hands in her lap. She looks like she might pass out, and it takes about thirty seconds for the hat to yell out, "RAVENCLAW!"
Her shoulders sag in relief as the second table from the left erupts into cheers. Alex watches her hurry over to join the cheering crowd. An older boy who must be her brother gives her a sideways hug and messes up her hair and it makes Alex feel very lonely, all of a sudden.
She lets her eyes linger longingly on the Ravenclaw table, sweeping her gaze over the students, trying to figure out if she might belong with them. There's an open chair next to Piper. Alex eyes it hopefully.
"Nice going, Pipe," Danny praises her as she practically collapses onto the seat beside him at the Ravenclaw. "I'll owl Mom and Dad the good news tonight...not that they'll be surprised."
She nods, feeling like it might take a second for her to start breathing properly again. A few of Danny's friends who've come around during the summer holidays congratulate her, too. The only other new Ravenclaw so far eyes her a bit enviously.
When she feels less toppled by relief, Piper turns her attention back to the Sorting, feeling very glad to have gotten hers over with so soon. She didn't ask Alex's last name, but it's the one she keeps listening for.
A girl named Tasha becomes a Ravenclaw and takes the seat next to Piper that she'd been hoping to save for Alex.
Alex is the very last kid waiting to be sorted, and Piper winces in sympathy at the sight of her standing there all alone. Finally, she goes and sits down, hesitantly putting the hat over her dark hair; it knocks the glasses down the bridge of her nose, and a smattering of laughter sweeps through the hall. Piper crosses her fingers under the table.
It seems to take longer than everyone else, but maybe because Piper's so anxious, before the hat declares, "SLYTHERIN!"
Whoa.
Piper's stomach drops in disappointment and surprise. She hears her brother mutter something about, "Another baby snake."
Alex takes the hat off and walks stiffly toward the Slytherin table, the look on her face making Piper's chest tighten. She wishes now she hadn't badmouthed Slytherin so much, because Alex looks completely and utterly terrified.
Your father.
That's what the hat had said.
Piper hadn't made Slytherin sound very appealing, but Alex is barely thinking about that as she walks on autopilot toward the cheering table. The outcome of her sorting is suddenly beside the point; she can't get past those two words.
Your father.
She's never met her father. She just knows his name and a few vague, hazy stories from her mom, who wasn't even with him for very long. After her Hogwarts letter came, Alex had tentatively asked her mom about it, but Diane had only scoffed and said, "Honestly, baby, he was a very good-looking guy - and damn good at drums, from what I remember - but I never saw any sign he was magic."
You've got touches of your father, too, shades of that wildness...could be dangerous...best left untapped, not like his...
She feels dizzy and disconnected as she sits down among her new peers, with prefects reaching over to shake her hand and other first years exchanging names.
She doesn't really come to until one of the older girls across the table, maybe a third or fourth year, who's been asking everyone else their family history, leans toward Alex and says, "Vause...don't know if I can place the name. What do your parents do?"
"My mom's a waitress."
"Oh." The girl purses her lips a little, but asks, "Where? In Diagon Alley?"
She says the name of the burger restaurant where her mom waits tables, and only after everyone in the vicinity goes quiet and exchanges looks does Alex really key into the conversation and remember what Piper said about Slytherins and Muggleborns.
Piper.
Alex lifts herself up off her chair a little, craning her neck to see the Ravenclaw table, one to the left of theirs. The hat had debated Ravenclaw first, so much so that Alex's hope had turned all the way up, but then it had started talking about ambition, which was apparently a Slytherin thing even though Piper hadn't mentioned it.
You want things very, very much, don't you? And you know this place is your chance to get them...
Then it had mentioned her father, and any debate between houses had flown out of her head even as the hat yelled out Slytherin.
At the Ravenclaw table Piper's back is to Alex, and she's talking to the girl beside her. For the first time, disappointment kicks at Alex's stomach. She tells herself she's being stupid. She just met Piper, and if it was that easy to make friends with her, surely Alex can do it again.
But when she turns toward the other first year Slytherins, no one seems to want to catch her eye.
After her first day of classes at Hogwarts, Alex sets about arming herself with knowledge.
She goes to library, nearly empty in the first week of school, and carries a stack the most modern history books she can find over to a table, preparing to settle in for a few hours.
Then she finds her father's name in the index of the first book she opens, and ten minutes later, runs off to the nearest bathroom to be sick.
A Death Eater. A wild one, the book had even used that word, the same one as the Sorting Hat. Rumored to run around with Fenrir Greyback and other feral werewolves, though it wasn't confirmed whether he was a true part of their ranks. Death Eater doesn't have the same weight to Alex as it does to the kids who grew up in this world, but the books make it all too clear: murder and torture and dark, dark magic.
So for her first month or so at school, Alex gives every professor there every reason to write her off as an unengaged, underwhelming student, and gives all her fellow Slytherins every reason to confirm their darkest suspicions about Muggleborns being useless.
She goes through classes in a stupor, and her wand, which at one point felt had made her feel complete for the first time ever, starts to feel heavy in her hand. She can't make it work for her. Alex doesn't want any part of this world, and she's starting to loathe this magic inside her because it comes from her father. She wants to go home, and she starts a dozen letters to her mother to that effect, knowing sooner or later she'll finish.
But one evening she's moving through the castle, looking for somewhere to be alone - she hates the Slytherin common room - when she wanders into what seems like an unused classroom, empty save for a tall, golden framed mirror in the center of the room. It's old fashioned looking, like everything else at this school, but the isolation of it is the most strange. Alex drifts toward the center of the room and stands in front of the mirror.
She pulls in a sharp, startled intake of breath.
In the mirror she looks older, tall, and she's counting money, not wizarding coins but muggle bills, a thick, marvelous stack of them. She's wearing jeans without patches and shoes with the right number of stripes and a shiny leather jacket that looks brand new. Her mom walks into the image, and Alex's head jerks automatically to her side even though she knows, of course, her mother isn't here. Alex reaches out, touching the glass, feeling a vivid rush of longing and homesickness. In the mirror, she's handing her mom the money, then a set of car keys. Her mom beams and hugs her, picking her up and spinning her around because suddenly Alex's image is eleven years old again.
Alex walks back to to dormitory that night remembering what the Sorting Hat said about her: that she wanted things, and that this place was the key to her getting them.
She pulls her wand from her back pocket, feeling comfortable with it for the first time all month. It's dark in the corridors, she's in an unfamiliar wing, so Alex lifts her wands and mutters a spell she's never tried, but has only seen in spell books. "Lumos."
The tip of her wand glows immediately, and Alex feels it, that light that lives in her fingertips. The opposite of dark magic. She convinces herself her father has no claim on that. She may have his colors on her robe's crest, but she doesn't have his last name, and she's never been so grateful for that.
Piper first hears about Alex's father just after Halloween, when she and her fellow first year Ravenclaws are crowded into the stands to watch the first Quidditch match of the season, between Gryffindor and Slytherin. It was implicitly understood that their whole house was there cheering for Gryffindor. So was Hufflepuff.
Piper finds the strength of the bias a little strange, especially in this arena - Gryffindor had apparently won The Quidditch Cup last year, and you'd think it would make them every house's biggest enemy.
But The Second War had left its mark on Hogwarts, and Slytherin House was the worst casualty. At one point during the match, the Gryffindor section of the stands, with help from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, bursts into an old, mocking chant song that references the absence of Slytherins from The Final Battle of Hogwarts. Family names still carry great weight. Families of Death Eaters often change their last names, but inevitably someone with a Ministry relative outs the students, and their discarded family names become the only thing the rest of the school calls them.
Poussey, a Hufflepuff who's apparently known Piper's fellow Ravenclaw Tasha forever, is solemnly informing them that the Slytherin Keeper, who has a brother in their year, also has a gaggle of Death Eater relatives either dead or rotting in Azkaban.
"You can tell he ain't right," Tasha says solemnly. "It's those beady eyes...we've got Double Charms with the brother, swear to God he turns everything into a hex."
"They shoulda made all the Death Eater kids Squibs," Flaca, another Ravenclaw, puts in vehemently.
Poussey snorts. "Guess that's one good thing about Alex Vause."
"What?" Piper whips her head around to gape at Poussey, her instinctive protest that Alex isn't a Squib - she was super embarrassing the first month or so of classes, but now she's the only one in their year who can transfigure anything bigger than a needle - instantly smothered by the implication that Alex is a Death Eater's kid. "She's Muggle-born."
"Half-blood," Poussey corrects. "My aunt says her dad is Lee Burley."
There's a chorus of curses and low whistles at that name. Piper shudders with revulsion before she can stop herself, but in the next second she remembers what Alex said on the train: she's never met her father, didn't even know whether he was magic. It seems especially unfair to hold that against Alex - she obviously wasn't raised in a dark magic family - but Piper doesn't mention it. It's not like she and Alex have stayed friends. They smile when they share classes, and sometimes exchange a few words in passing, but nothing more than that.
Still, Piper's chest hurts for the rest of the match, because she knows Poussey isn't much of a gossip, but if she's found this out, everyone else will soon enough.
Second Year
Alex is almost definitely about to be late for Potions, and even though Professor Parker is their Head of House, and notoriously easy on the Slytherins, that treatment doesn't extend to Alex. She won't dock points, but she'd love to give her detention, keep her scrubbing cauldrons and beakers for hours, no magic allowed, making snide comments about how she's probably used to that anyway, right?
Alex doesn't relish the thought, so she's practically running toward the dungeons, books wrapped in one hand, wand gripped in the other. She always moves through the corridors with her wand in her hand. Always. It's a necessity, as was how absolutely perfect she's gotten at shield charms.
She hears footsteps coming up the spiral staircase from the other direction, and Alex tightens her grip automatically. She's not usually this jumpy, but the corridors are usually more crowded than this, and she's a hard to resist target even then, much less one on one.
Her whole body relaxes, however, when she sees the one other student in this school she doesn't have to worry about.
"Hey, Alex."
"Hey, Piper."
They smile without teeth, and they don't slow down, just squeeze past each other on the stairs and keep going in different directions. This is all they do, this barely friendly acknowledgement, leftover obligation just because Piper had the misfortune to sit next to Alex on the train. Piper doesn't always speak, but Alex likes when she does, because she's the only person in this school who uses Alex's name.
Miss Vause from the professors. Burley to the Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs, and all Ravenclaws but one. Mudblood or Squib to her fellow Slytherins, with their strange sense of loyalty: Alex has had housemates step up and hex other students on her behalf, only to give her disgusted looks and muttered slurs as soon as the confrontation is over. She prefers Mudblood, truth be told - she's proud of the reminder of her mother's blood in her veins, of the lack of importance of her father's. Squib is just ridiculous: she's near the top of her year, and yet will never be forgiven the first month she'd hated her magic too much to use it.
So Alex exists on her own, but she's used to that: all those years before Hogwarts, she hadn't had friends at school either - for very different reasons - and once she finished kindergarten she'd been home in the empty apartment while her mother worked. She can get by alone.
She still visits the mirror, some nights, though she can't always find it. Sometimes it's the same, her mother and the money, but sometimes she sees herself and Piper, huddled over a table in the library, or wandering the Hogwarts grounds, laughing and talking. Alex never stays long on the nights Piper's in the mirror. She's figured the mirror out by now, that it shows the things you most desire, and the simple hope for a friend is such a small, embarrassing thing to want.
"Hey!" Someone tugs on the back of her robes, pulling Piper away from the table and to her feet, pumpkin juice dribbling down her chin.
"Geez, what?" She twists around to see Tasha, looking impatient.
"I need you to come with me, I left my Charms essay in the dormitory."
"So why do you need me for that?"
"It's Monday, they changed the damn riddle again...you know I can only do the ones with numbers. None of this Confucius bullshit."
"What's the riddle?"
"I don't remember, something about a Bogart when no one's around to see it...but rhyming."
Piper sighs, but allows her friend to lead the way out of the Great Hall and back to Ravenclaw Tower. Even though breakfast is nearly over, Alex Vause is just now coming in.
Her eyes flick over and meet Piper's. Piper quirks one corner of her mouth and lifts her eyebrows in acknowledgement then continues to follow Tasha, ignoring the distant scratching of guilt that always comes when she sees Alex around other people. She never says hello when anyone can hear.
Third Year
"Immobulus!"
Piper flicks her wand, but the white mouse on the table skitters forward, unaffected.
"Immobulus!"
The mouse stops walking on its own accord, tail still twitching, nose still quivering.
A low, frustrated sound uncurls from Piper's throat.
Every other Ravenclaw in her year had successfully done the spell in class today, and they'd done it on pixies, way faster than this dumb mouse she'd borrowed from Larry Bloom.
Piper can feel warm, watery panic shifting nauseously through her stomach. She saw how everyone was looking at her at the end of class. Pitying. Like they're all glad they aren't her.
She straightens her shoulders, flexes her fingers around her wand, and tries again, practically shrieking, "Immobulus."
The mouse squeaks at her.
She feels childish, irrational tears pushing at the edge of her eyes, and Piper squeezes them shut, angrily muttering to herself, "C'mon, you can do this, don't be stupid, you're smarter than this, come on..."
"Uhhhh. Am I interrupting?"
Piper twists around, horrified, and for some reason, the sight of Alex Vause standing awkwardly in the doorway fills her with breathless relief. Not that Alex is really someone she wants to embarrass herself in front of, but it beats most alternatives. "Oh. Hey, Alex."
"Hey, Piper."
They both fall silent for a moment; those are the only words they've exchanged in over two years. Anything beyond the greetings is uncharted territory.
"Sorry," Alex says finally. "I was just looking for someplace to study." Piper doesn't ask why she isn't choosing the library or her common room for that. Amusement flares in Alex's eyes, and she comes a few steps closer. "What are you doing?"
"Practicing freezing charms."
Alex lifts an eyebrow and smirks. "I take it from your self pep talk that it's going well?"
"I just...I can't do it for some reason." To her utter humiliation, Piper's voice catches. "I don't know what's wrong with me."
Instantly, the amusement leaks from Alex's expression and she crosses the room completely to stand by the table. "Nice rat."
"It's a mouse."
"Oh, my mistake. Can I watch you try?"
Piper rolls her eyes, hoping that will hold off the threat of tears. "Why, you think you're going to be able to help me?"
Alex's whole face hardens, eyes flashing dangerously. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
"Nothing," Piper murmurs, embarrassed.
"What, you think I'm stupid, too?"
"No." Piper really doesn't. She doesn't know what was going on the first month of school last year that made Alex not want to try, but anyone with eyes can see it didn't last. Piper can never bring herself to defend Alex when her friends start calling her Burley and talking about her father, but Piper if one of them mentions she's dumb in school, Piper always chimes in with the logical, rational fact that it's obviously not true.
Alex ignores the denial, practically snarling at her. "Because I'm not in the nerd house with you and your asshole friends?"
Piper starts a little at the obvious reference to their conversation on the train. For a second, she feels ugly retorts rush to the tip of her tongue, but suddenly she's hearing their long ago talk echoing in the back of her head, their one and only day of friendship, and suddenly she deflates, letting her wand clatter onto the table in defeat.
"I obviously shouldn't be in there either," she says softly. "And I know you're smart. You're smarter than me."
"I am not," Alex counters matter-of-factly, anger gone from her voice. "You kick my ass at essays." Piper looks up at her again, taking in the fact that Alex has been paying that close of attention. Alex doesn't seem to register her own admission, just waves her hand impatiently. "Now stop being a baby and show me."
Dutifully, Piper picks up her wands and nudges the mouse into motion. "Immobulus!" Nothing. She tries again, shifting her syllable emphasis. "Immo-BUL-us!"
Alex is already shaking her head. "It's not the way you're saying it, it's your wrist, look..." She holds out her own hand, demonstrating. "More of a twist than a flick...rotate it...just this much..."
Piper recites the spell, trying to mimic Alex's motion. Still nothing. Frustrated, she kicks the table leg, shifting it enough the mouse goes scurrying in a terrified circle.
"Merlin, calm down." Alex is trying not to smile now. "Such a temper. Here..." She comes a little closer, then reaches out and blankets Piper's hand in her own. "Like this." She guides Piper's wrist, but Piper forgets to say the spell, forgets what she's even doing right now. She wants Alex's hand to stay where it is. It makes her think of that day in Ollivanders, when she'd finally chosen the right wand - the way it had felt, for the first time, that she was holding her magic in her hand.
She barely stops herself from whining when Alex moves her fingers away. "Now you."
"Immobulus!"
The mouse freezes on the spot, and Piper's face breaks into a smile. "Hey! I did it. Thanks, Alex!"
"Sure." Alex smiles back at her, then stays quiet while Piper undoes the spell and repeats it three different times to make sure it wasn't a fluke. Then, apropos of nothing, Alex asks, "So are you going to Hogsmeade this weekend?"
"Yeah, I'm excited. Are you going?"
"I don't know. My mom signed my form and everything, I just, uh. Can't decide if I want to."
"Oh, you definitely want. Danny's been telling me about Honeydukes for years. You have to come." Alex meets her eyes, unfamiliar hope lighting them, and suddenly Piper realizes her mistake. Her eyes flick away, and her words stumbling backwards as she adds in a much more distant voice, "I'm going with my friends and stuff. We'll probably go to Three Broomsticks as a bigger group. The Ravenclaws, I mean."
There's a pause, and Piper can't look at Alex during it, and then finally she says, "Sure." Her voice is distant, too. "Sounds fun."
"Yeah."
"Okay. Well..." Alex smiles tightly. "I should go."
"Thanks again."
"No problem."
"Bye, Alex."
"Bye, Piper."
While most of the castle is gone on the first Hogsmeade trip of the year, Alex spends a rare few hours in the Slytherin common room, relishing the quiet stillness of the place. There are a few first and second year kids milling around, but even though they look at her through narrowed eyes the same as everyone else they don't dare say anything to her.
She gets bored after awhile, and she ends up habitually wandering the castle, eventually seeking out the mirror again. It shows her with Piper, this time, but she knew it would considering their conversation in the classroom last week.
This time, though, Alex doesn't move away immediately. She sits on the floor and watches: they're in the same classroom, and Piper's eyes are crinkled and lit up and laughing, and it's not actually any different from how she'd looked when it happened.
Then suddenly Piper leans over and presses her lips against Alex's.
Alex scrambles to her feet and out of the frame of the mirror.
She doesn't go looking for the mirror again, not ever.
Fourth Year
"No book today?"
"Huh?"
She's walking to the Quidditch pitch with Tasha and Poussey, who exchange looks like she's being deliberately slow.
"You never come to matches without a book."
"Especially when we ain't even playing."
Piper can feel herself flushing, but she makes herself shrug innocuously.
"I don't know. Just feel like actually watching today, I guess."
Poussey grins. Hufflepuff is playing, so she's more fired up than either of them. "You feel like seeing Slytherin get their asses kicked, more like it."
"Hell yeah." Tasha offers her a fist bump.
It's Alex's first game as Slytherin's new Beater, and just about everyone who's showing up to watch is hoping she sucks.
She'd tried out for the team last year, too, and hadn't made it, even though she killed at the try out. But this year Janae Watson is Captain, and she's probably the most competitive person at this school; she cares more about winning than anything else, including blood status or alleged intelligence. It means someone besides Piper Chapman actually speaks to her at this school, and Janae does much more than say hi - she's fond of cornering her players in the halls and giving long winded speeches about strategy.
Alex loved to fly from the first time Madame Figueroa lined up the Slytherin first years and told them to command the brooms into their hands. For her first three years at Hogwarts, she'd sometimes sneak out and steal one of those old, crappy brooms they used for flying lessons and go soaring around the empty pitch, always taking off if one of the teams showed up. Sometimes she'd have fantasies of just taking off, for real, leaving Hogwarts behind and flying to every corner of the world.
Quidditch is a whole different beast, of course, and Alex loves that, too, loves the adrenaline rush and the competitive spirit, but nothing beats the flying. There's a reason it's the thing muggles dream about. Sometimes when Alex is airborne she ends up thinking about her mom, back home in the apartment by herself, working at the restaurant, and Alex wishes she could send this feeling to her.
Alex sends a perfectly aimed Bludger whizzing at John Bennett, one of the Hufflepuff Chasers, knocking him off balance and away from the Quaffle just in front of Slytherin's hoop. A loud wave of boos drowns out Slytherin's unusually lackluster cheering.
"She would be a Beater," Larry Bloom mutters darkly from the row above Piper and her friends.
"Every team has Beaters," Piper mutters diplomatically.
"Nah, he's right," Tasha counters. "Shows she likes hurting people."
Piper's tempted to ask if their team Beaters - which include the current Head Boy - also like hurting people, but she keeps her mouth shut. Her eyes track Alex, speeding down across the pitch, expertly guiding her broom with one hand and holding her bat at the ready with the other.
The score stays neck and neck for awhile, when suddenly the Hufflepuff Seeker goes into a dive, flying toward a corner of the pitch that's nowhere near the Slytherin's Seeker. The crowd starts to cheer, sure the match is about to end, when the Hufflepuff goes cartwheeling off course to avoid a Bludger Alex sent. This time the Slytherin's cheers are substantial, and they grow even louder when their Seeker cuts in front and snags the Snitch.
There are groans of disappointment all around Piper, and she ducks her head to hide her traitor smile as the Slytherin team convenes on the ground in a victorious huddle, Alex cheering right along with them, actually seeming a part of something.
Larry Bloom invites her to the Yule Ball and Piper says yes because she wants to go, and she wants to go with a date.
Alex Vause returns from Christmas holiday with a tattoo of a rose on her arm; the leaves waver sightly, as if a breeze is sweeping just across Alex's skin, and every so often a petal falls away and drifts down her arm. In the few classes they share with the Slytherins, Piper can't stop staring at it.
Piper watches her house beat Slytherin in Quidditch, and a few days later she's lounging on the lawn with Poussey and Tasha when Alex strolls by, broom slung over her shoulder, probably on her way to practice. She catches Piper's eyes and grins. Piper's friends aren't paying attention, so she smiles all the way back, even lifting her hand in a wave.
"Hey, you."
Alex turns around to see Tiffany Doggett, a sixth year from her own house, striding toward her.
"I lost ten fucking sickles cause of your sorry ass game on Saturday."
Alex snorts, rolling her eyes. "Talk to Martiza if you're pissed," she mutters, referring to the Slytherin Seeker.
"Nah, I saw what happened...ain't you s'posed to be the defense?"
The few groups scattered across the lawn have gone quiet, watching the show. Piper's whole boy feels tense. She'd actually watched the whole match on Saturday - no way anyone could spin Slytherin's loss and make it Alex's fault.
Alex is already turning away. "Whatever."
Tiffany doesn't let up. "You ain't fit to wear my colors."
At that, Alex glances back, bugging her eyes out in mock amazement. "Your colors? So...you're Salazar Slytherin? Were you reincarnated?"
"More him than you are...mudblood."
Two seconds later, Doggett's flat on her back on the grass.
And Piper's wand is smoking in her hand.
Most people are staring at Alex in shocked terror.
Alex is staring at Piper.
So are Tasha and Poussey, the only ones close enough to see Piper grab her wand.
"What the hell was that?!" Tasha sounds borderline scared of her.
"Girl did you just go nonverbal?" Poussey sounds impressed.
"I...I don't know..." Piper stammers, dropping the wand like it's burning her hand. She hadn't thought, just reacted. That felt like magic did when she was a little kid, before she could control it - unbridled outbursts of fury.
"She isn't dead, is she?" Tasha asks warily, lifting herself on her elbows to get a better look at Doggett. "Cause if you're going around silently Avada Kedavra-ing bitches, I don't know if we should be friends..."
But Tiffany's stirring on the ground, and the next thing Piper knows Poussey is hauling her up by the elbow. "C'mon, we better clear out of here."
Piper lets them drag her off. Everyone else in the vicinity has already started putting immediate distance between themselves and Alex, who's still standing rooted in place, staring after Piper like she can't even process what happened.
The rumor is everywhere by the next morning at breakfast; that Alex Vause knocked out a fellow Slytherin without saying a word or even holding her wand. Piper feebly tries to correct people exactly three times, and every one of them think she's making a joke. When she asks Tasha to back her up, she pretends to think Piper's hilarious, then pulls her aside and tells her to take the out she's being given.
Piper keeps thinking she's going to have to explain herself for how quick she was to defend Alex, but Poussey is mainly impressed by the skill level - silent spells aren't taught until sixth year - and Tasha hates that word so much she doesn't even think much about who was being called it.
Alex, though, is being given a wider berth than ever by the entire school, including her own house, any good will her Quidditch performance had bought her instantly unraveled by the belief that she attacked an older and more worthy Slytherin.
Piper thinks she probably owes Alex something, if not for the act itself than for her complete failure to set the record straight in its aftermath. But the truth is, the strength of whatever she'd felt that day, whatever had made her do that, scares Piper. Alex Vause is not even her friend, she's just a person Piper says hey to, and only out of some long played out obligation because they had been nice to each other for a few crucial hours nearly four years ago. Piper's sick of this near stranger crowding out her peripheral vision.
So Piper severs her thin, insignificant ties to Alex Vause. She stops saying hey when they pass in the corridors, stops with the tight, closed smiles of acknowledgement, stops looking for her when she walks into any common space. She stops it all, and she keeps it up for the rest of the year.
Fifth Year
"Piper, sweetheart, you'll look out for your brother, won't you?"
"Yeah, mom, of course..."
"And Calvin, you owl us straight away tonight, alright, son? Wanna hear about the latest Ravenclaw in the family."
Cal pulls a combative face. "I don't wanna be a Ravenclaw."
The Chapman's exchange long suffering looks, but all they say is, "We'll see."
Piper can see her younger brother gearing up for an argument, so she quickly puts in, "I gotta go, the prefects have to check in in the first compartment to figure out patrols."
Predictably, her parents beam at the mention of her new title, hugging her and kissing her cheek and hurrying her along to start her duties. She tells Cal she'll check on him later, then gratefully drags her trunk toward the train, eager to see who the other prefects are.
As soon as she slides open the door, she finds herself face to face with Alex, sporting a shiny prefect badge on her robes. Piper feels oddly frazzled at being so close to her after ignoring her for most of the second half of last year; she has no idea what Alex thinks of her, anymore, after what happened, but Alex just gives her an easy, uncomplicated smirk. "Figured I'd see you up here, nerd."
A/N: More of fifth year (and sixth and seventh) coming up after the break. Let me know what you think. Let's not do the whole debating Sorting thing, though. Like, hopefully the intent here is clear even if we all have our own opinions etc etc.