Author's Note:
Sorry for the long delay in posting the latest chapter, I've kind of had writers block and a rather hectic and busy summer. I've got a bunch of scenes already written out (actually I've had them since like February) but they are all much further into the story, almost all of them taking place during the summer. So it's been a bit of a problem trying to create scenes that fit in between what I'd already written.
I'm a little unsure of this chapter, I feel like the writing is sup-par, so I'd love to have some reviews on what you guys think. If you notice any grammar/spelling errors be sure to let me know and I'll fix it right away.
Once again standard disclaimer applies, I own nothing here (except my OC), and I don't profit from this work.
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Medea was released from the hospital a week after she had been brought there unconscious by her professor. Her return to Slytherin was somewhat anti-climatic, no one talked to her when she returned, and she had another three days of bed rest to look forward to before she would be allowed back in classes.
Medea slowly trudged down the hallway to her dorm room and sat herself down on her bed cautiously. It wasn't that different from before, she reflected, sure a few more people were ignoring her, less hateful comments directed at her, no random hexes coming her way. All-in-all it might be better this way than before. She closed her bed-curtains not even bothering to change into her pyjamas and snuggled in underneath her covers. She nearly jumped out of her skin when she tucked an arm underneath her pillow to cushion her hand and it encountered something moving.
Her hand burned and she quickly pulled it out from under her pillow, cautiously lifted her pillow and snorted in amusement.
"A flesh-eating slug! Really, is that the best they can do?" Medea crawled off of her bed and went to her trunk to pull out a cage that she had acquired for her Care of Magical Creatures Class with Hagrid. She carefully scooped the flesh-eating slug into the cage, casting the proper spell to make sure that its corrosive spit wouldn't damage the cage, and then placed the cage on her nightstand with a note for the house-elves asking that they please bring the flesh-eating slug, complete with cage, to Hagrid as she was on bed rest.
Medea snorted in amused derision again before lifting up her sheets to see if there were any other creature surprises waiting for her in bed. She found three more flesh-eating slugs hiding at the bottom of her bed and quickly placed them into the cage with the original.
Slightly more cautious she lowered herself to look underneath her bed, grateful that the girls hadn't returned to the dorm room for the night yet. She didn't want to be caught looking like a scared little girl because of their stupid trick. But Medea was nothing if not cautious, and maybe just a teensy weensy tiny touch paranoid; which in this case turned out to be a good thing as underneath her bed she found not flesh-eating slugs but rather a runespoor. The three-headed snake was African in origin and highly venomous. Not something that would just wander into the castle and then find its way into the Slytherin girl's dorm. This was obviously deliberate.
Medea gave a small sigh, and hoping it would work called out for a house-elf to appear. Although the house-elves had assured her several times, when she was in the kitchens eating, that if she called them they would appear she hadn't believed them.
To her delight one did.
"Miss Wood called for Loppy?"
"Yes, if you wouldn't mind terribly would you be able to do me a great big favour and tell Professors Snape and Hagrid that there is a runespoor snake in the fifth year Slytherin girls' dorm, please."
"Yes, Loppy be happy to help!" Loppy exclaimed excitedly before disappearing as silently as he had appeared.
Medea stayed where she was on the floor contemplating her options, if what she remembered from Hagrid was correct the runespoor snake did not like sudden movements or loud noises, so provided she stayed still and quiet the first head would probably take plenty of time to think about what it wanted to do and the middle head would not be disturbed from its dreaming. The third head was still a worry because it rather enjoyed biting people but as long as she was out of immediate bite range she would be fine because the first two heads were unlikely to move the whole body to get to her without significant contemplation.
That at least was a relief. She wondered idly if whoever had done this had known enough about runespoors to be confident in her safety or if they had simply picked a snake at random.
Medea slowly tilted her head back, trying to see if there was anything at the top of her bed that she should be concerned about. After all whoever had done this had put something in her bed, and under her bed, so it would only make sense to put something at the top of her bed.
And oh look she was right. "Huh, a cocoon spider eh? I guess they are really trying to kill me. Damn lucky the thing didn't start wrapping me up as soon as I lay down." Cocoon spiders, she absently noted to herself, were capable of fully wrapping a grown human in a cocoon within thirty seconds. Medea carefully fingered her wand, and debated whether or not she should just leave the room after all. It would be difficult to defend herself from both creatures if they decided to attack her at the same time. But so far both seemed relatively undisturbed by her presence.
Her decision was taken away from her hands as the door to the room flung open and Snape strode in.
"If you were making a joke about their being a runespoor in here you will have detention every night from now until the end of the school year."
"I'm not, it's under the bed." Snape strode towards her bed to take a look underneath to see if she was lying or not. He began to kneel down when her voice suddenly interrupted him. "I'd be careful if I were you, there's a cocoon spider almost directly above your head." He looked up, his face displaying surprise, which was impressive, she thought, as he rarely wore anything but a sneer.
"What, pray tell, are you still doing in this room then? It's obviously not safe for you in here, you idiot girl."
"I'm waiting for Hagrid to arrive, I was hoping he could take the runespoor and keep it safe instead of just killing it, plus the runespoor and the spider both seem to be pretty relaxed at the moment."
"You dunderhead they can both move faster than you can react."
"Than I won't do anything to piss them off."
"At the very least you silly child you will move yourself to the far end of the room, while I begin to contain these creatures." She nodded her acquiescence and moved to the far end of the room, keeping a careful eye out in case there were any other creatures hiding in the dorm room. Surely not, after all the other girls wouldn't want to risk having too many creatures in here in case one of them decided to invade their beds.
Hagrid arrived several minutes later after Snape had already put both creatures into a stasis charm, although Snape was obviously annoyed over both having to preserve the creatures and having Hagrid appear in the girl's dorms to collect them. Hagrid, on the other hand, was over the moon at having the chance to add a runespoor to his pet collection.
Hagrid left soon afterwards with all the creatures, thanking Medea and Snape profusely for the animals. Snape went to leave, pausing at the door to glare at her and assign her an extra detention for her refusal to leave the room during a dangerous situation.
Medea sighed after they left, climbed into her bed, drew the curtains around herself, and hoped that the girls would leave her alone for the rest of the night.
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It was freezing cold outside, and Medea was already soaked to the bone, but she was contentedly piling snow, by hand, onto a growing pile. She smiled happily as the pile continued to grow, thankful for the fresh snowfall of last night. She jumped when a voice snapped her out of her happy musings.
"What are you doing?" Fred questioned her, his face alight with confusion.
"I'm building a quinzee."
"A what?" George asked.
"Is this a muggle thing?"
"Sort of, it is a muggle thing, but it's not a common muggle thing. It's a snow-house."
"A snow-house?"
"Yeah."
"Why would you want a snow-house? Wouldn't it melt on hot days?"
"Or be, you know, cold on cold days?"
"Not a very stable structure, I'd say, Gred."
"I'd have to agree with you, Forge."
"Are you two done?" She asked them in exasperation, not bothering to look at the pair, but continuing to pile snow on the mound that had already formed.
"Just about, yeah."
"But seriously, why?"
"Because I've always wanted to." She smirked.
"Alright, so what exactly is a quinzee, besides a snow-house? How do you make one?"
"Well a quinzee is sort of like an igloo. Have you heard of an igloo before?"
Fred and George looked at each, seemingly confirming each other's knowledge before replying with a simple "Nope!"
"Okay, so what I was told was that in North America, Canada especially, quinzees are made as a form of shelter in the winter from harsh conditions, they aren't meant for long-term living, but can last for several months if the weather conditions hold and the builder is good enough. Quinzees are essentially snowmounds that have been hollowed out to create a shelter. You need to create the mound from scratch to ensure that the snow is compact enough. Once you have the mound created you need to let it rest for a couple of hours to let it settle. Afterwards you hollow it out, using sticks to help gauge how thick the walls are."
"Cool, can we help?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because it's mine."
"Okay, why aren't you using magic for this?"
"Because."
"Okay, where did you learn all of this anyway?"
"In a book, a storybook that my mum used to read to me. I always wanted to create one, but there was never enough snow in the city to do it."
"So you're making one now."
"Yeah." She smiled wistfully, as she continued to pile snow.
"Do you mind if we hang out with you?"
"We promise not to help."
"You can stay I guess." Fred and George settled on the ground to watch her build her quinzee, joking with each other as they always had, but every attempt on their part to engage Med in their conversation was met with absolute silence. She didn't acknowledge them in any way, and the two began to worry about the cause of her strange behaviour.
It seemed like hours later that Medea stood up and declared that phase of her building done. She strode quickly away from the snow mound and Fred and George hurried to catch up with her.
"Aren't you going to put some protective spells in place or something?" George questioned her with a worried frown, she'd been so intent on her task that they had expected her to do anything to ensure the safety of her quinzee.
"Nope."
"Why not?"
"Because if I were to put up any kind of spell around my quinzee it would bring attention to it. You know there is bound to be some student who notices the ward or the illusion that I'll place on it and question it further and investigate and the next thing you know it won't be mine anymore. If I leave it like it is no one will think anything of it, it'll just be another random mound of snow. Sometimes there's safety in anonymity."
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Medea quickly fell into the habit of doing all her homework in her quinzee. The only ones that even knew of her quinzee's existence, aside from it being a random mound of snow, were Fred, George, Hagrid and her. Which meant she was mostly left to her own devices when she was inside it.
Her quinzee made her feel safe, and real, and connected in a way that she hadn't in ages. It reminded her of her mum and Medea wished more than anything that she had been able to share her quinzee with her mum. Her mum had always promised that one day they'd have enough money to leave London for a weekend and go somewhere where there was snow and fields and forests. And they would explore and play and build a quinzee and just be together. But her mum was gone now, it was just her, just her and that's why she built the quinzee by herself. This quinzee was her own personal tribute to her mum. She'd never gotten to see her mum's grave as her mum's family had taken her mum's body away to be buried when she was at Hogwarts and they hadn't bothered to tell her where her mum's final resting place was.
And god she hated them for that! More than she had ever hated her mum's family before. She hated them so much now, before she just hated them with a child's passion as she raged against their rejection of both her and her mum. But rejecting them was nothing compared to them taking away her mum's body so she'd never get a chance to say good-bye to her.
So she built this quinzee, a tribute to her mum, and she remembered all those nights when her mum had snuggled her up and read to her about the frozen north and the family that had built a quinzee to protect them from the darkness and the night. She'd always imagined the two of them snuggled together in their very own quinzee, safe, secure, and loved. But now it was just her and she couldn't even bear the thought of sharing her quinzee with anyone else. Even letting Fred and George watch her build it had been almost too much for her to take, this was private and special, but they were her first and only friends here and she didn't want to lose them.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Snape consulted his student list as curfew struck, he'd set the list up to identify when students were out of the dorm after hours, and he checked every night, several times a night, unlike those other heads of house, he snorted, he actually made sure that his students obeyed the school rules.
Only one name was highlighted on the list, he was somewhat surprised by it, never having had Ms. Wood stay out past curfew before, but he supposed he shouldn't be surprised, after all she was the only one currently in Slytherin that had been pregnant to his knowledge. She was probably off right now having herself a tryst with a student from a different house.
He rose from his desk, determined to find Ms. Wood before she had the chance to engage in any inappropriate actions. "Point me Medea Wood," he commanded his wand, following it as it led him from the dungeons. When he reached the entrance to the castle and realized that his wand was insisting that she was outside he began to worry. She had no reason to be outside, that he knew of, and it was a cold January night, -20˚C, she would be freezing if she was outside, if she had been out here long enough she might have contracted hypothermia. His mind flashed back to a few months ago when he had found her in a pool of her own blood under a silencing charm. Had something happened to her? Had a prank gone wrong leaving her vulnerable again?
He strode off across the lawns searching for his way-ward student with a troubled frown.
"E'rything all right, Professor?" Hagrid's booming voice startled him, making him jump, but Snape turned with a frown towards the larger man.
"A student of mine is out past curfew and it appears that she is out here somewhere."
"Well, I'll help you look." Hagrid offered, face falling into serious lines, a rare expression for him Snape thought. "Which student is it we're looking for?"
"Ms. Wood." Snape sneered at the name and continued to stalk off in the direction the wand was pointing. Hagrid's larger strides kept him easily apace with Snape, so Snape did not bother to slow his walk down, not that he would have in the first place, he sneered to himself, a student out after curfew was no time to move slowly.
"Reckon she's out in her quinzee, then, Professor?"
"Her what?" Snape snapped at Hagrid, annoyed at his lack of knowledge.
"Her quinzee, she built it a couple weeks back, spends most of her free time in there."
"And what, exactly, is a quinzee?" Snape drawled, his voice dangerously low.
"Well it's kind of a like a snow hut. It's a mound of snow with a hollowed out room inside." Fantastic, Snape sneered to himself, she'd created a room for her to engage in various shenanigans without the watchful eyes of the staff and the ghosts to keep track of her and make her obey the rules. Except of course for that bumbling oaf Hagrid.
"And you haven't told anybody about this before?"
"Course not; she asked me not to, worried it would be destroyed if people caught word of it. She let me know of course, so I would know not to hurt it, but she made sure not many people knew." Snape's sneer reached, if anything, even greater proportions as he increased his pace crossing the lawn, in the distance he could see a flickering light and he aimed himself towards it. Hagrid, for once, picked up on the social cues and fell silent as he walked beside him.
The light continued to flicker the closer they got, Hagrid confirming that it was coming from her quinzee. Once they were within spell-casting distance he raised his wand and blew apart the wretched thing, expecting to catch Ms. Wood and another student in a rule-breaking act. The way the light from her wand had flickered had indicated that she was distracted.
So he was understandably confused when he looked at the sleeping girl on the ground, surrounded by homework, as her wand continued to flicker with her breathes. The homework, he noted was dry despite its crinkled and much-scratched out nature. Unlike the girl herself who was soaked through to the bone, having clearly been lying on the snow-covered ground for a long time.
Her wand continued to flicker, he noticed absently, only the strongest of wizards were able to maintain spells such as this in their sleep, Ms. Wood had given no previous signs of anything beyond barest magical and academic ability. Perhaps this was just a notable exception and nothing else.
Snape flicked his wand and a chorus of bells began chiming; jerking Ms. Wood out of her ill-planned sleep. She looked around, seemingly dazed, trying to get her bearings. Reality seemed to hit her all at once as she turned a hate-filled glare on her professor.
"You destroyed it!"
"You are out after curfew, Ms. Wood."
"So you decided to destroy my property as a punishment?"
"I hardly think that a mound of snow could be considered property, and even if it could it would belong to the school not to you."
"Why the hell did you destroy it!?"
"I was under the impression that your dormitory was where you were supposed to be sleeping, not underneath a mound of snow on the school grounds."
"So wake me up and kick me inside next time! I fell asleep and missed curfew, it wasn't intentional, I was just trying to get some homework done in the quiet and now you've destroyed it!"
"There is a library in which to complete one's homework, Ms. Wood, a fact that has perhaps escaped your knowledge based on your abysmal grades over the years." She straightened herself up with a huff, collecting her books and papers by hand. Clutching her wand in her free hand, she turned towards the two professors, and for a moment Snape thought he saw her contemplate hexing him, before she seemed to calm down enough to lower her wand to her side.
"Whatever, can I just go inside now?"
"Of course you can, Ms. Wood, but you will be serving three detentions with me for being out after curfew, and you have lost your house twenty points for your attitude this evening."
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
She'd been too slow leaving charms today, and she'd known it. She knew it wasn't a good idea to wander the dungeons alone, that she should have just gone straight to the library or something, but she hated the library, it was oppressive, cloying, she couldn't feel the wind or the sun or even the cold there. Not that the dungeons or the Slytherin dorms were much better, if anything they were worse, she felt the whole weight of the castle pushing down on her when she was in them, but they were her dorms and they were where her textbooks were kept. Medea knew she had to finish that essay for Professor McGonagall before next week, which meant she needed her Transfiguration textbooks, so she needed to go get her books from the dorm before she could find a quiet place to study where she could actually breathe and focus and think. If only she hadn't been running so far behind she might have been able to just slip along with the crowd and have no one pay any attention to her.
Crabbe's hands pushing her into the wall of a deserted classroom in the dungeons reminded her, rather painfully, that that had not been the case.
Goyle leered at her as Crabbe went down to try to kiss her, she twisted her head to the side forcefully, trying to avoid his gaping mouth. She was successful. To a point.
His hand left her left arm to crush her face in his hand and redirect it for a kiss. She wanted to gag, it was so gross, did he even brush his teeth?
Goyle reached into the gap on her left side and began to painfully fondle her breast. She squirmed trying to get away, wishing they hadn't already managed to steal her wand so she could do more to fight back.
Her knee reacted almost instinctively jabbing up into Crabbe's exposed crotch, Crabbe suddenly let her go, crumbling to his knees, holding his crotch and making a high-pitched whining sound. She turned to run away but was held back by the hand still painfully crushing her chest. She was slammed back against the wall, but her right arm remained free, she thrust the heel of her palm into the bottom of his nose, throwing her whole body into it, what wasn't restrained by his groping painful hold. She heard a distinctive loud crack, felt warm blood spurt onto her hand, and his hands finally let go of her.
She ran to the door, but just as she arrived it was flung open, and Draco Malfoy walked in loudly calling for Crabbe and Goyle.
"Crabbe, Goyle, where have you two idiots gotten to- What the hell is happening here? What did you do to them Wood?" Malfoy spun around and turned his wand on her.
"They were attacking me, I just fought back. You can't blame me for that."
"You've injured them."
"They were trying to hurt me."
"I doubt Snape or Umbridge would see it that way."
"You wouldn't."
"Of course I would. I was just appointed as leader of the Inquisitorial Squad, and what better way to celebrate than to turn you in for attacking other students in the corridors. Umbridge will be very upset to see what you have done to Crabbe and Goyle, they are two of her favourite students you know."
"What the fuck are you looking for here? What do you want me to do to get you to leave this alone?"
"Nothing. You're more useless than Longbottom, Weasley, and Potter put together. You've got nothing of value and zero influence. At this point being a pawn for other Slytherin's aims is the most you can hope for out of life. Best be resigned to it now." He smirked at her before binding her with magically created ropes. Crabbe and Goyle slowly, and in the case of Crabbe rather painfully, followed the pair of them up to Umbridge's office.