The plot thickens! By the way, Feather-light charms are canon but the incantation is unknown. I invented one that literally reads "feather-weight" in Latin for this story. With Valeria now having studied magic for four months, expect more of it per chapter. Also, taking bets in how long it'll take the girls to get involved with Potter and co. :)
Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J. Rowling. Any attempts at using magic to change that will fail because such magic also belongs to J. Rowling.
October the 31st arrived to find the entire castle in a festive atmosphere. Giant pumpkins provided by Hagrid and animated by Professor Flitwick decorated every hall and archway. Bats made out of sugar and chocolate that actually flew were in evidence at great numbers and any students who could grab one were free to eat it - but doing so with magic could have unexpected results. Random pranks went off during the day, turning peoples' hair green or their robes itchy or their shoes insult them at every step. And the ghosts and Peeves didn't disappoint; walking around the castle that day was not for the faint of heart.
Valeria had been curious about the meaning of the holiday for wizardkind. It turned out that it was both a seasonal celebration, as per the original Gaelic Samhain, and a day when humor and ridicule was used to momentarily stave off the fear and sadness of death, as per the original All Hallows Eve. Much like their muggle counterparts, her fellow young witches and wizards were largely ignorant of the holiday's original purpose and treated it as a great time to have fun without reprisals from their supposed guardians. That attitude baffled the blonde Slytherin, especially with two entire branches of magic dealing with arithmantic and semantic influences on magic itself. Moreover, wasn't that the day the recent Wizarding War ended only a little over a decade ago?
The day culminated with with a huge feast to rival the one at the start of the year. She, Tracey and Daphne had taken their customary seats at the Slytherin table and were having one of their usual arguments about food.
"I'm just sayin'..." the small brunette said conversationally as the food appeared on their plates. "...you two are being unreasonable. All this culinary heaven is being provided for us. How could you possibly ignore it?" She took a huge bite out of the meat pie she had at hand just to demonstrate.
"Keep eating like that and you'll soon be the size of Goyle." Daphne said cattily as she took a dainty bite out of her own meal and washed it down with pumpkin juice. The blonde heiress could make even eating look elegant.
"Don't look at me." Valeria rolled her eyes as Tracey did just that, an obviously false expression of betrayal on her face. "I'm only here because it's officially required. I usually pack some cheese and bread for later and then..."
"Spend the rest of your time in the library?" Tracey finished with a smirk. "By the time we graduate you'll look like Madam Pince."
"That's still better than Goyle." Valeria smirked back. The argument was about to continue when Professor Quirrel came into the Great Hall. He crossed the cathedral-sized chamber at a dead run, almost losing his purple turban in the process, and practically collapsed before Dumbledore's throne at the staff table.
"Troll — in the dungeons — thought you ought to know." He then sank to the floor in a dead faint. There was an immediate uproar as six hundred students all tried to shout questions, get off their seats and run, or hide beneath the tables all at the same time. Several purple flashes from headmaster Dumbledore's wand that roared like thunderbolts in the enclosed space quickly restored order.
"Prefects!" he said, his voice loud but unhurried "Lead your Houses back to the dormitories immediately!"
Gemma immediately gathered the Slytherin girls for the first three years and led them towards the staircase that led to the dungeons. The rest of their House, being older and less panicky, was already marching ahead.
"Girls, I need to speak to professor Snape." Valeria said as she and the other two fell to the end of the line.
"Whatever for?" Daphne asked in surprise. "What can't wait until after the emergency?"
"The emergency itself." Valeria said with a frown. "Why are we going to our dormitory when both it and the troll are in the dungeons?"
"You aren't telling Gemma." Tracey stated, not alarmed at all. "Is it because you want to keep the point reward to yourself?"
Valeria nodded absently as they separated from the others. The Great Hall had been left all but empty in the students' haste to flee, chairs, food and miscellaneous gear strewn all over the floor. She even saw someone's wand lying forgotten on the Hufflepuff table. The teachers were leaving the Great Hall from the exit that eventually led to the Great Staircase and other ways down to the dungeons than Slytherin House had taken. Valeria was about to call out when she noticed Professor Snape breaking from the group and heading up. Making a decision she hoped she wouldn't come to regret, she took out her wand and whispered.
"Spongify! Colovaria! Pennagravitas!"
Having turned her boots soft as a sponge, given her robes Gryffindor colors and cast a Feather-light charm on herself, she dashed after her Head of House in near-silence. With her every step spanning twenty feet, she was already out of the Great Hall by the time she realized Tracey and Daphne couldn't follow. She'd learned the Feather-light charm during her recent attempts on better controlling levitation and stumbled upon the use she was putting it into when her first casting misfired. But since they'd learn it in class later in the year and the textbook never mentioned that use...
Any doubt or guilt fled her thoughts when she noticed where following professor Snape had taken her. She was in the third floor, near the door that led to the forbidden corridor! What was more, the potions-master was nowhere to be seen, the door stood open, and very loud noises were coming from inside. If she didn't know better (and she really didn't) she'd have sworn they were barks! Hugging the corner, she peeked at the doorway with only one eye. No barking monster was taking a bite out of her, thank you very much! The Sorting Hat had put her in Slytherin for a reason and a combination of ridiculously impressive valor with unbelievably atrophied common sense wasn't it.
What seemed hours later but probably had been less than a minute, a very angry and dishevelled professor Snape jumped out of the door and forced it shut with a spell. His robes were in tatters and he was leaving a trail of blood as he limped away from it. A few more flicks of his wand conjured long strips of gauze and a bottle of muggle antiseptic, which he applied to his left leg to stop the bleeding. He probably wanted a temporary patch until he could get to a healing potion, Valeria thought. But what had he been doing in the "forbidden" third-flood corridor in the first place and what kind of monster lay in it? Come to think of it, why was there a monster in Hogwarts in the first place and how could the headmaster issue an announcement pretty much tailor-made to get every irresponsible student to check it out? Not that she was being stupid herself, following her Head of House when she was supposed to be in the Slytherin common room, no sir! Everything was fine in this madhou... err castle.
Valeria climbed down to the dungeons, careful to avoid wandering trolls or worse, teachers. Unaswered questions plagued her thoughts all the way...
...
"Come on blonde and blonder, get out of my way." Their attacker taunted as he tried to bull through. "It's not as if you could stop me, you two are rubbish on a broom."
If looks could kill, Ronald Weasley would be dead and buried. No, not buried, Valeria thought as she evaluated Daphne's murderous expression. He'd already be an inferius from the sixth-year defense textbook, on his way to off the rest of his family and rid the wizarding world of the Dimwit Rudeginger gene. Nodding at each other, they launched themselves at him simultaneously. He might be taller and heavier but being caught between two angry girls when they hit you from opposite directions at thirty miles an hour was a painful place to be. It was Madam Hooch's fault, really. The hawk-eyed instructor had decided they had improved enough to try their hand at a 'friendly' Quidditch game for their 8th flying lesson. Of course, friendly was relevant when the teams were Gryffindor vs Slytherin. Especially when the actual match between the two Houses' teams had been just last week and Slytherin had trounced Gryffindor by a respectable margin.
The festivities begun when Theodore launched himself against Potter in an attempt to steal the quaffle, failed miserably and crashed his broom. Five minutes later Finnigan drew his wand and set Blaise's broom on fire. Pansy retaliated by casting something at the quaffle that Valeria didn't recognize. When Potter next tried to grab it it stuck in his arms and he could neither drop it nor use his hands to guide his broom. Thomas and Patil charged the Slytherin lines with abandon. Pansy managed to avoid them but Tracey didn't; they knocked her off her broom. Luckily, she had been flying low and avoided serious injury.
"Look at Potter!" Daphne said as the two of them raced away from Weasley with the quaffle before he could hunt them down. Valeria did and winced.
"Looks like someone hexed his broom. You think Hootch will interrupt the game now?"
"No way." The other blonde said with a laugh. "She's having way too much fun at our expense. And she probably thinks if we work out our differences now, we won't be ruining the real matches if we ever join the quidditch team. It's not as if she can't prevent accidents with magic."
It turned out Daphne was wrong about that. Madam Hooch's efforts to counter the hex on Potter's broom proved as fruitless as any attempt to fly close and grab him. In the end, Potter himself jumped off his broom before it got too high and their flying instructor proved herself by grabbing him in mid-air. It was a stomach-turningly foolhardy action on Potter's part, but also changed Valeria's opinion of him for the better. It showed enough presence of mind to recognize the inevitable and radical thinking that turned a potentially lethal situation into a manageable one.
It also was the end to their chaotic lesson. Everyone except Potter and Neville got five points off their House for performing one of the seven hundred recorded fouls in the game rules and everyone who used magic against anyone had another ten points subtracted. The Gryffindors cheered at coming out ahead but the Boy-Who-Lived didn't join in. Valeria noticed only because he was looking at him while deciding whether to approach him; instead of joining the celebration, Harry Potter was frowning as he furiously searched the empty castle windows for something... or someone.
...
"I'm telling you Vi, going sniffing after Snape's business would be bad." Tracey said as the three of them finished their homework and started practicing the actual spells. "You don't want him to get as nasty as when he's dealing with Gryffindors."
"Well, no. But you have to admit it's funny." Valeria cast the Levitation Charm and her feather lifted in a perfectly normal, controlled way. Finally! It had taken months for the desk to quit following it in its aerial acrobatics.
"Funny 'ha ha' or funny peculiar?" Daphne was casually swinging from her bed's roof, holding on with one hand. She'd finally deigned to try out the Feather-light charm herself, despite it being totally undignified. Naturally, she'd spent the last hour trying out totally impossible gymnastics with a wide grin.
"You know what I mean. This school has too many mysteries for my liking. How can we even study when someone is letting Trolls run rampant in here?"
"Nobody asked you to investigate, girl." Daphne commented reasonably. "It wasn't as if we've been put in danger so far. The troll wasn't even in the dungeons!"
"But I need to know!" Valeria whined despite how childish it made her. "And that's another thing. Why would professor Quirrel lie about the troll's whereabouts?"
"Who cares?" Tracey scoffed. "There are far juicier rumors than that. For example, did you know Potter and Weasley got detention with Snape?"
"Really?"
"They got caught running around the castle during the troll incident." Tracey chortled. "You'll never guess what for!"
"OK, Trace, we'll bite." Valeria acquiesced. The brunette loved her rumors and every chance she got to share what she'd uncovered.
"They were after a Gryffindor girl who they saw being left behind!" she exclaimed, nearly bouncing in excitement. "Only, they couldn't explain how all the Gryffindor girls could be safe and accounted for back in their tower. Or knew what she looked like, for that matter."
"Congratulations miss Campbell. Fifty points to Slytherin for successfully deflecting blame on the Boy-Who-Lived and the Weasley ignoramus." Daphne said mock-seriously; her professor Snape impersonation was spot-on.
Valeria groaned at having been seen. Admittedly, it had worked far better than it could have had but she didn't want to rely on luck next time. She had not even noticed she'd been followed! Learning magic was something too precious to lose; she resolved then and there not to interfere again in anything that could get her caught and expelled.
