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4

"What do you mean he doesn't hate you?" Harry questioned, apparently irritated. "That doesn't make any sense; the only reason he hates me is because I'm a Potter. And you're one too, he should hate you." He reasoned sourly, as if upset the Potions Professor didn't hate his sister.

"She's not a Gryffindor." Hermione noted, as they all walked leisurely to their next lessons of the day.

"Im telling you, it was so strange. After we did roll call he wouldn't look at me the whole lesson, he avoided me completely." Mia insisted, idly biting into an apple she'd saved from lunch, "Even when I asked for advice on my Forgetfullness potion, he came over and helped me but didn't bother looking at me once."

"That is odd." Hermione agreed, "Not even one insult? I don't think he even treats his Slytherin's like that."

"That greasy gits up to something." Ron cemented, looking solemn.

"I don't know. When he looked at me he didn't look angry or disapproving or anything, he looked…" What was that stare? It was some sort of deep emotion, almost somber, but not exactly, something more. She had no clue how to describe it.

"Trust us Mia, the bat's no good." Ron insisted. "Don't fall into any false sense of security."

Mia peered at Harry, he looked confused but in apparent agreeance with Ron, habitually tugging at the black stone around his neck she'd given him the year before.

Hermione looked thoughtful, "Ron's probably right, don't get too used to it. Maybe he was just having an off day."

"Yeah maybe…"

"Anyway, we're off Charms bound, we'll see you and Luna at dinner, right?" Harry promised when they reached a crossing in their path.

"Right." Luna conceded and Mia bobbed her head affirmatively.

The Gryffindor trio went right while the Ravenclaw's split left.

"He is a rather thoughtful character, isn't he?" Luna pondered as they walked through the quiet halls, the golden afternoon sun pathing their way to their final class of the day.

"Who? Snape?" Mia questioned.

"No, your brother of corse." The blonde corrected, staring out of the arched stoned windows at the sunset.

Mia scoffed good-naturedly, "Harry's about as thoughtful as Professor Lockhart's books make me."

Luna only smiled knowingly, "You are lucky to have a brother like him." She commented, "And he is lucky to have a sister like you. He care's about you a lot you know. I can see it."

Yeah, I know.

"Of corse, it would be more obvious if it weren't for all the Wollysikrats clouding his brain."

Mia chuckled, smiling at her only friend, "Yeah I guess so."

Reaching the foot of the steps, the pair braced themselves for the tedious and calf-burning task of climbing up the many sets of stairs to the transfiguration classroom.

"So the rumours are true." A smooth voice announced clearly.

The two Ravenclaws spun to face the corridor that lead off to the right of them. The orange haze from the setting sun outlined a dark silhouette of a boy sat perched up in one of the castle's stone windows. The effect was mysterious in an annoyingly cliche kind of way, Mia thought.

"You're Harry Potter's sister."

The figure dropped sleekly from the ledge he'd been lounging on, his movements perfectly fluid. How he even got up there in the first place Mia had no clue.

She could see him properly now, he was the dark haired boy in her year who was first to be sorted into Slytherin. What was his name again?

"Well I hope so," She admitted, "I'm wearing her underwear."

Mia knew how Harry felt about anything Slytherin but she wasn't immediately going to be rude to someone solely because of their house.

The Slytherin boy smirked slightly and looked at her with a glint in his eye, "In that case, I hope so too."

As the boy moved from out of the shadows, she was allowed a better look. The Slytherin had dark brown hair and just as equally dark eyes, unlike most eleven year olds he already had rather broad shoulders and strong facial features. He was tall for his age but not remarkably so. His face proved difficult to read, which was unusual for Mia as she was a rather empathetic character; generally having a knack for knowing what people were thinking.

The boy flashed his eyes to the other blonde Ravenclaw, taking in her bizarre attire. Everything from the tattered pink converse (which Mia was pretty sure wasn't in the dresscode) to the radish earrings. Mia could tell he was about to ask her name when his curious gaze finally landed on her head, "Why do you wear that thing on your head?"

Mia had been thinking the same thing for quite sometime now. Luna had chosen to wear a sort of headband sprouting two wires that reached upwards, ending with what looked like coloured pom-pom's on top.

"Because if I wear it any place else it chafes." Luna explained simply.

Mia couldn't tell whether the boy looked amused or not, nor did she find out what his response would be as four figures rounded the corner at the end of the hall.

"Oi, Goode! we've been looking for you ev-" The voice Mia recognised all too well as Draco Malfoy's, cut himself short. His lips split into a devilish grin, spying the two Ravenclaw's with the boy who she now remembered as Zachary Goode, "Ah. I see you've met the other Potter and the resident Lunatic." Here we go. "I have to say," The blonde drawled with what he no doubt believed to be an aristocratic tone, "I wasn't expecting a Potter in Ravenclaw. I didn't figure your mother would have had enough brains to pass on. A Mudblood, wasn't she?"

The three boys behind him - one tall, one fat, and another she recognised as a fellow first year, Darien Noire - all grinned wickedly. She didn't know what a mudblood meant but judging by their reactions, she didn't colour it a compliment.

"And I have to say," Mia began thoughtfully, not allowing indication of the nerves she was feeling, "I wasn't expecting you to have more than one friend. I figured what little dignity your father might have had he wouldn't be able to pass on when he lost it conceiving you. A bigoted, sanctimonious arsehole, isn't he?"

She don't know why she did it. It was five Slytherins (three of them being the year above) against two Ravenclaws. Harry had always berated her for letting her mouth run away with her when she got angry (and she had always pointed out he was hardly one to talk), it had a nasty habit of getting them both into tricky situations.

Predictably, Draco's face instantly scrunched up in anger and he had his wand whipped out and pointed at her in a second, quickly followed by the three lackeys behind him.

"You'll pay for that Potter." He spat menacingly.

Mia already had her wand drawn and aimed at him, trying to not let her nerves make her hold quivver. What good it would do her was naught, unless she could somehow incapacitate Draco by turning a matchstick into a needle, that being the extent of her knowledge in wand magic.

Zach was still leant against the wall, only slightly tense from the abrupt escalation of events. His wand was wrapped tightly in his hand but, instead of being raised and pointed, remained hanging down by his side. His dark eyes were roaming around calculatingly, analysing the scene. His face was hard to read but his eyes were glistened darkly and his mouth was slightly quirked at one end, if she didn't know any better Mia would have thought he was slightly amused.

Luna still had her wand in her pocket, apparently only mildly concerned with the whole thing.

"What are you going to do with that?" Darien Noire taunted, glancing at her wand, his eyes aglow with sadistic amusement, "Throw it at us?"

Mia narrowed her eyes, he did have a point, "And what are you going to do with yours exactly?" She asked her fellow first year, "Wave it around threateningly while you hide from two defenseless first years behind three older boys. There's no doubt you weren't made for Gryffindor, you coward."

Darien's face darkened and he grinned maliciously, "You underestimate me, you foolish girl."

In a flash, Darien whipped his wand in a harsh stroke and spat, "Diffindo!" A curse Mia instantly recognised as the cutting curse taught to second years.

His aim was off kilt and the beam of light was directed more towards Luna.

Mia only had a moment to shove the blonde out of the way when the spell made impact. Striking where Luna's hip would have been, the curse hit her bag, sending paper and books flying in all directions.

Darien lifted his wand hand once more, offended that his aim was less than perfect. Before he could utter more words, Draco raised a hand to stop him.

"Not now." He muttered, then looked over his shoulder at the other second years, "Crab, Goyle. We're late." He announced, then looked pointedly at Darien, and finally over at Zach, "We'll see you at dinner."

With that Crab, Goyle, Darien and Draco turned and left, but not before Darien stomped and spat on one of the many books that were now scattered in the corridor.

Once they were out of sight, Mia turned to look at Zach, only to find that he too had gone.

"Luna, I'm so sorry." Mia faced her only friend, "I shouldn't have said anything, that was so stupid of me."

"That's quite alright." The blonde assured, her gaze dropping. "You're hurt."

Grabbing hold of one of Mia's hands she lifted it up to show the blood on her palm that was dripping to the floor. The redhead hadn't even noticed the pain until then.

"It's just a cut." She asserted, "They're right though, we're going to be late. I'll deal with it later. Let's just clean this up and go to class, McGonagall's going to be mad if we take much more time."

Agreeing, Luna quickly helped her round up all the books and paper before the two legged it up the stairs to their last class of the day.

The next day, the first saturday of the school year, the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff girls had all gathered to sit at one end of the Ravenclaw table for breakfast. Ginny was sat with the other Gryffindors, Allura and Scarlett, but made an effort to smile lots at Mia and engage her in conversation, which the Ravenclaw appreciated.

Luna was silent, contently reading the latest Quibbler that had been owled to her that morning. Marlene and Delilah were predictably whispering conspiratorially and giggling at their in jokes and gossip.

Mia decided that she actually liked Allura. She expected the elegant French girl to be like Scarlett; conceited, snobby and superficial. Yet Mia noted the fact that she didn't seem to care who she was talking to merely in order to seem cool. At that moment she was immersed deeply in conversation with the shy Hufflepuff, Gwenith Galbraith, debating the perks of different fertilizers on mandrake plants as opposed to the more commonly used ones.

She had watched Scarlett become irritated that Allura was not giving her attention and had swiftly swivelled in her seat to face Mia. Her expression was quickly lifted into a sickly sweet smile and her tone rose an octave higher as she talked to the Ravenclaw. It was clear to Mia that the girl clearly wanted her to like her.

Her heart plummeted, although it didn't come as much of a surprise to the redhead when the conversation quickly turned to the subject of Harry. Was she close to him? What was he like? It's like, so cute that he's so protective of her. Did she remember anything about that night. Maybe they could hang out together sometime

Mia was groaning internally when she agreed in a just as falsely sweet voice that yes, of corse they could hang out sometime, that would be like so nice.

The younger Potter was only too happy when the conversation was interrupted with a nudge from Marlene sitting next to her.

She and Delilah were smirking at Mia and glancing over at the Slytherin table, "Did you know that Darien Noire has been staring at you for like, the last ten minutes." Marlene whispered in a suggestive tone.

"Really?" Mia asked, quickly peeking at the Slytherin table to confirm that, yes, he was staring at her. "Trust me. It's not a good thing." She assured, trying to rid them of their smirks.

Delilah gushed, "I wish he'd stare at me." She grinned cheekily.

"Really, why?" Ginny asked, slightly disgusted, "He's horrible. He pushed Ava into a wall the other day."

"Yeah," Ava confirmed, "And he put something in Gwenith's cauldron in our first potions lesson to make it explode. Hufflepuff lost twenty points."

"Yeah I know," Marlene dismissed, "I'm not saying I'd date him or anything, but you can't deny that he is really hot."

Mia raised a brow. Now she thought about it, maybe the brunette Slytherin was good looking. Though his repulsive personality completely negated anything he had going for him in the looks department.

"But," Ginny leaned in conspiratorially and whispered. "he's from one of those families. A really dark one. I heard his parents were Death Eaters in the last war."

"Yeah, but doesn't that add to the whole bad boy thing a bit?" Delilah added lewdly.

Marlene gasped but was still smiling, "Delilah! You can't say things like that, Death Eater killed people."

Delilah only smiled knowingly at her best friend, "Yeah, but you know it's true."

Marlene smirked in confirmation and the two girls giggled.

"Yeah I guess he is hot," Scarlett debated, wanting to join in the conversation, "But his brother's hotter."

"That's true." Marlene and Delilah both nodded seriously.

"Who's his brother?" Mia questioned, biting absently into a bagel.

"Well, his adoptive brother." The brunette Gryffindor amended, "Both he and Zach Goode were adopted by the Goode family when the war ended."

Ava nodded, "My mum said that Darien's parents went to Azkaban because they were followers of You-Know-Who and that's why he lives with the Goode's."

"Is that what happened to Zach's parents?" Ginny queried.

The raven-haired Hufflepuff shrugged, "I don't know. I assume so. Either way, the Goode family is no lighter than the Noire family, if you get what I'm saying."

There was a beat of silence in the conversation as everyone ate some of their food. It was curious, Mia pondered, that Zach chose to change his last name when Darien didn't. They would have been young when they were adopted, was the decision made for them? In that case it seemed odd to her that they only had one baby's name changed and not the other.

"Ladies." A shrill voice rang from behind them, the first years all looked up to see Professor McGonagall looming over them with a pile of parchment in her hand, "I am here to inform you that I shall be absent from your next lesson. In that time I wish for you to complete these tasks," She said, and with a wave of her wand a piece of parchment each neatly flew from the pile in her hand to land in front of each girl. "And also to go over your last assignments, amend them to the best of your ability and hand them in to me in our next lesson." She added, waving her wand once again to return marked homework to their respective owners. "Have a nice day girls."

The girls all muttered vague pleasantries in response as they all scanned over their first marked homework of the year.

"What did you get?" Marlene asked openly.

"I got a Poor." Delilah sighed disappointedly, stabbing childishly into a piece of bacon.

"I too got a P." Allura elegantly placed the piece of parchment on the table, her words dripping in a heavy French accent.

"That's better than me," Mia smiled grimly, "I got a Dreadful."

Ava frowned, "It's okay, all the teachers have been telling us that we'd do badly at the beginning." She reminded, "Later in the year, and when our technique improves, we'll all be doing great."

As the weeks went by, it was true; everyone's grades did slowly start to get better. Everyone's but Mia's.

It was always Dreadful, sometimes Troll, and at best Poor. Not once did she get a pass mark on any of her written assignments. She didn't know what she was doing wrong! Her practical work was alright, no worse than the majority of the students. She'd even go as far as to say that she was the best at Transfiguration in her year. The only class she wasn't at least average at was Defense Against the Dark Arts. She didn't know if that was because the quality of teaching was dismal, or if it was just because she didn't have a knack for it.

She hadn't told Harry how bad she was at it yet. She knew she wouldn't be able to stand the look on his face. Her older brother loved Defense, and he was amazing at it. It broke her a little that she couldn't enjoy it to the same lengths as he did.

Her grades were making her even more of an outcast than she already was within her house. Ravenclaw was so academically competitive their hierarchy consisted of the people that had the best marks. As the months progressed and all the first year Ravenclaw's continued to compare marks with each other, she was slowly getting shunned away from them. The little friendship she may have forged with Marlene and Delilah had deteriorated rapidly when they started to look at her like some freak of nature. It got to a state where Mia was getting overly anxious to the point of getting dizzy when she received a piece of marked work back. What had the sorting hat been thinking?! She didn't belong in Ravenclaw. But then where did she belong? Was she always destined to not fit in anywhere?

She also found, as autumn merged to winter, it proved difficult to take Ron's advice about Professor Snape. It was difficult to be wary of someone who wouldn't look at you. Perversely, she found it unnerving that the man didn't pick on her at all when he was constantly torturing all of her classmates. The most interaction the Professor allowed was when he had to help her on a potion or she had to hand in an assignment, but even then he tried to avoid it. When she bought it up with Harry and his two best friends, he and Ron always said the same thing, that he was 'no good' and whatnot. But Hermione always looked thoughtful. Mia got the impression she knew something she wasn't telling them.

Additional to that, the trio were hiding a lot from her. She knew something was up. Ever since the detention Harry had had with Lockhart back in November she'd found them whispering conspiratorially about something and then quickly hush when she was near. It stopped happening so much as time went on - up until Halloween that is.

Mia had never liked Halloween. Ever since the year she found out at her old school that people used to dress up as 'Olympia Potter' and go to school in ripped and over-sized clothes. Her dislike for the day grew when Hagrid had told she and Harry that that was the day their parents had been murdered all those years ago.

And when the day had finally come in late October, she found she had spent it forlornly thinking about all her usual daydreams and fantasies of a life where her parents were been still alive. She'd spent the whole feast subdued and slightly miserable. So, naturally, she'd been the first one out the door when it had ended.

Being the first to stumble across her brother and his friends staring at what looked like a dead cat hanging from a torch holder, and words written in blood on the wall in one of the corridors on the way to the Ravenclaw common room had given her a shock, but not as much as the whole school when they'd seen the scene only moments later.

The incident was all the rage in the school in terms of gossip for the next few weeks. Mia had heard loads of crazy theories about the message 'enemies of the heir beware' by the end of the week. But worst of all she suffered all kinds of garbage conversations with nosy people, from anyone like the gossips of Marlene and Delilah, to people like Colin Creevey and, to her annoyance Draco and Darien.

That whole fiasco in the corridor on her first week had been a huge mistake. It made her an almost instant target for taunting. As if being Harry Potter's sister wasn't reason enough she had to go make another one.

As time went by, she'd come to the conclusion that Draco was mostly bark and no bite and was only really bothered in having power over his people, but too much of a coward to do anything too drastic. Darien, however, was the scary one.

He wasn't afraid like so many Slytherin's were to some extent, and he was maybe slightly mad. His demeanour was most chilling; he was calm, graceful and collected right up until something bothered him and he would react unmercifully and brashly. From what Mia could see, he'd also done a lot of research into upper-year spells in defense. He had a lot of curses in his arsenal.

It was late November when she started to notice the absence of Harry and his friends at mealtimes, mainly Hermione. When she asked what was going on she'd always get the insistant response that it was nothing and could she stop asking them.

Otherwise, her school life had been going smoothly with not so much drama right up until the night Colin Creevey got petrified.

The school had been thrown into panic. Allegations and accusations were thrown from one person to the next, fear escalated within the Muggleborn population, and theories on Slytherin's 'monster' were getting crazier and crazier with each day that passed. The school had frenzied itself into such a state of hysteria that the Professors had ended up organising a duelling club.

Mia had found it a bit silly, shouldn't they be spending their time working out who it was they were meant to be duelling? Who the actual threat was.

That was why, when the lower years for the school went to the Great Hall to learn to duel an unknown enemy, the redheaded Potter went alone to the library.

She'd never seen the room so empty. Not only was there no younger years to be seen but the upper years appeared to be absent aswell, most likely relaxing before the Christmas break. The library had been somewhat of a haven to her since she'd come to Hogwarts - as it was to most Ravenclaws, she at least had something in common with the rest of her house in that respect. It was beautiful with ancient beams forging the skeleton of the room and the omnipresent, comforting smell of musty old tomes. She knew from Hogwarts: A History that it had been one of the first rooms built in the castle, making it that much more inspiring.

She took a window seat in one of the corners that was usually taken by a seventh year - it having the best view over the school grounds and the rolling Scottish countryside beyond it.

How would she figure out the identity of the heir of Slytherin? Well, the logical thing would be to try and trace his family line to the present day. She guessed that Professor Dumbledore at the very least would have already done such a simple thing - or perhaps a magical variant, but there was no harm in doing a little research of her own. Maybe she could narrow it down to a few suspects in the school and continue to do research in a way Dumbledore couldn't; the cover of being a small, innocent first year at least had a few perks that the status of a Headmaster didn't.

Navigating the library was a lot easier now than it had been at the beginning of the year. What had seemed like a crazily chaotic system of organisation had now started to make sense a little. Of corse, it would make a lot more sense if Mrs Pince didn't keep changing it every few days.

It took only a little while to find a pile of books that grew to a height only marginally taller than her head which she bought back to her claimed table.

"Potter!"

Papers with names and scribbles flew everywhere when Mia's head flung up, her eyes snapped to see a very intimidating looking Mrs Pince looming over her. She hadn't even heard her approach, perhaps spending years and years in the quiet of a library one builds a skill for stealth.

"Curfews in 3 minutes. Out!." The slightly overweight, bespectacled lady ordered.

Curfew?! She'd been in the library for four hours? A quick glance out the window confirmed the sun had set a while ago. Wow. She empathised with Hermione a lot more now.

When the twelve year old made no movement the hunch-backed old lady pierced her with a fearsome glare, "Out!"

In a hurried motion Mia sweeped all of her pens into her bag and swung it onto one shoulder. On her way out she cursed herself. Four hours in the library and she was still not much closer to working out the identity of the heir.

Swooping down the stairs in the direction to the Ravenclaw common room she reviewed her findings in her head. Through extensive ancestral research, she'd first narrowed it down to about 80 possible descendents of Slytherin in the school. Which, she supposed, was better than the original 320 potential students, but still wasn't that specific. The teachers had been taken into account too, though they'd gone in her head by process of elimination; why would they open the Chamber of Secrets now when they had their own entirety of their Hogwarts education to do so. Therefore, within the school student population, she'd only found 73 possible families of direct relation to the Slytherin. Most of which were in Slytherin, but some were in Ravenclaw and a few in Hufflepuff. Assuming the heir was a current Slytherin (which she thought would be), and not in either of the other houses, her search had narrowed down to 51 students. She had considered ruling out the potential suspects in their sixth and seventh years as they would almost definitely have no clue who Colin Creevey was or even existed, let alone know he was a Muggleborn. But she ended up deciding she couldn't fully rule them out without more solid evidence then that; there was a small chance a sixth or seventh year might have met or heard about the boy.

Voices drifting towards her through the ancient corridor she'd been meandering through pulled her from her thoughts.

"You're not serious?" A voice asked, dripped in amusement, "They think Potter's the heir?" The incredulous statement was followed with several people's laughter.

Me? Why would they think -

"As if Potter could ever be related to Salazar Slytherin." A voice snickered. Draco. "The day Harry Potter is even a slither of a Slytherin is the day that oaf of a groundskeeper's life is worth a sickle."

"They know nothing." A second voice sneered. Darien. "We go to a school of brainless imbeciles."

What did they know? Mia thought.

As she speculated further on it, it would fit that one of them could be the heir. They would most likely know who Colin Creevey was, along with his blood status.

"To be fair, that whole Parselmouth act will keep everyone on their toes, they'll have no hope in knowing who the true heir is."

The boys laughter faded and their voices became indistinct in Mia's ears as they walked presumably back to the dungeons.

She had no idea what a Parselmouth was, nor what it had to do with her brother, but she knew that those Slytherin's must know at least something about the heir.

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