"Skipping classes again, I see." Professor Slughorn sat at his desk and I sat in front of him. "What's the meaning of this?" He was referring to my freshly cut hair, instead of to my waist, it was now at my shoulders, and my bangs were pinned to the side of my face with green clips that I had found in my bag. I was in my school uniform, but I felt different. "Short hair, you're hair out of your face for once, and are you wearing make-up?"

"No, I've typically worn eye liner and mascara." I told him, "Nobody could ever see due to my hair." My voice sounded nearly chilling to myself. "I thought change would be good, to... start anew." I looked at Slughorn, "How much detention are you going to give me for cutting class?"

"Three times next week, Monday through Wednesday." Slughorn said, "You'll serve it with Mr Filch." I nodded and stood from the chair, taking my leave from his office. I made my way back to the common room, everyone was still in class.

I grabbed the newest book I would be reading since I finished the Secret Garden the previous night. I hadn't made my way to class for a couple of days, and spent my time away from the common room when everyone was in here. The next day was Quidditch, and I had promised Regulus I would come, I almost wished I hadn't.

"Not showing up in class is a real bad thing to do you know." The hair raised on the back of my neck at the voice that came to me in the dead silence. I had thought I was alone in the common room, but apparently I wasn't. "Missing meals, not showing up in the common room. Some of us thought you were dead."

Chapter Eleven

"It'd be a nice thought, wouldn't it?" I smirked as I pulled my wand out and turned to Lyla who already had her wand drawn, "I'm not much for dueling, but I think you're an easy match."

"You're merely a fifth year." She sneered, "I am a seventh."

"Only numbers, my dear." I laughed, "It's all about the experience." She flicked her wand and I jumped out of the way, diving to the ground, sending a simple "Expelliarmus!" at her from floor level. I pushed off the ground as she had deflected the spell and sent another one at me. "Petrificus Totalius!" I shouted from behind the arm chair, the spell missing her completely. I cursed silently as the chair was lifted in the air and moved to the side. "Protego!"I called just in time as a red jet shot at me. "If this all you've got?!" I laughed, knowing I wouldn't last much longer.

I pushed myself off the ground and onto the couch where I provided another shield spell, which surprised me because after one they normally don't work. "Expelliarmus!" I heard and my wand flew out of my hand as I was thrown backwards off the couch and over the table, knocking everything off it.

I groaned, knowing I couldn't get up as Lyla jumped over the couch and onto the table, her wand pointed at me, "How does it feel, Mudblood, to have life being taken from you?"

"You think you can kill me?" I smirked at her stupidity.

"Oh yes." She said with a grin, "Accio-" My wand flew into her wand, "They'll think it was suicide."

"What about your finger prints that will lie on my wand? They'll know you last touched it." I pointed out. "Even Muggles can do that much."

"Then I should have you kill yourself, what honor is that?" Lyla sneered, "Imperio-"

My body moved against my own will, and the feeling that I didn't have worry over my actions made me almost impossible to try to find myself. My mind kept on going blank, but I fought against it. Lyla handed me my wand, "Do it, kill yourself, you filthy mudblood... You know the spell..."

I pulled my arm to my head, as if I was holding a gun to my temple. Avada Kedevra came to easily to my head. I bit my lip, and I felt my stomach sink as the words began to come out of my mouth- "Ava-da..." They were becoming forced out, I fought again to pull my arm down. I stopped and I could feel myself beginning to get control again as Lyla looked away, the door to the common room opening.

"Quickly kill yourself!" Lyla hissed at me as she looked to the opening door.

The student entered and spotted me, "Expelliarmus!" They yelled, my wand flying out of my hand and to the floor feet away.

"Get your wand. Fight them, cruciate them for stopping yourself! They didn't let you die!" Lyl hissed at me before turning back towards the people. Everything was numb around me, I wasn't hearing what anyone else was saying or doing, and I walked over to my wand, I picked it up.

I could feel me biting my lip again, and my wand flew again from my hand. Lyla flew in front of me, hitting the wall and I felt released from the curse. "Marty!" Someone yelled, it sounded like Severus. My knees gave out and I felt someone grab me before I fell, "We need to get her to the Hospital Wing." Severus' voice came as he spoke to someone else next to him. "Grab Vlasic." He seethed as I felt myself be picked up and I fell into the dark abyss.

"-idea what she was doing!" Severus' voice came. "Vlasic had her under the imperius curse."

"That's a lie, Snape!" Lyla's voice echoed, "I wouldn't dare preform one of the unforgivables on another student!"

"Keep your voice down, she's still resting." I heard Dumbledore tell them.

"Professor, she was going to have Marty kill herself with her own wand so she wouldn't be caught doing it herself." Severus explained, "She wanted it to appear as suicide."

"You sure put a lot of thought into that one." Lyla shot. "How do we know you weren't the one that was trying to get her killed? You just knocked me out to make it appear as if you came in and saved her." Severus didn't respond, so Lyla continued, "I knew you fancied her kind, first that Evans girl-"

"Shut up!" Severus hollered at Lyla, I heard the chair scrape against the floor as he jumped to his feet.

"Shut up you guys, you woke her up." Rae's voice came as she had noticed me holding my breath. "Marty..." Rae said softly to me, "Marty, are you awake?"

I opened my eyes, the bright Hospital Wing lights blaring in at me. "What happened?" I said pushing myself up against the headboard as I looked around.

"Severus and Samantha saved you the other day." Rae told me and I groaned. "What's wrong?"

"I missed the Quidditch match, didn't I?"

"You were actually going to go?" Rae and Severus both said astounded.

"I promised Regulus I would." I said with a heavy sigh.

"It's okay, he'd be here right now if he wasn't in detention." Rae said with a small smile.

"Detention?" I pressed.

"Him and-" She paused, receiving a look from Dumbledore, "I'll tell you later." I nodded, understanding.

"Where's Samantha?" I asked looking around.

"With Regulus." Rae smiled again and I looked at her oddly.

"If I could have everyone leave the room, I would like to speak to Ms Mayhem alone." Dumbledore said, "Professors, you will stay with me." I looked to see Slughorn, McGonagall, Sprout and Flitwick all there, the four houses. Everyone cleared out of the room and five chairs appeared for the Professors.

"Ms Mayhem, will you please explained what happened Friday afternoon?" Professor McGonagall asked me.

I nodded, "I'll do the best I can." I swallowed, my throat was dry, "I was in the common room reading my book. I thought I was alone but I guess I wasn't. Lyla Vlasic was in there and she's had it out for me since the beginning of this school year more than any other year." I paused, seeing if they were going to protest before I continued, "We got into a duel, something I'm not very good at..." I paused again, "I know, detention for that." I sighed, "Well, I was knocked onto the ground..." I began to slow down, trying to remember it, but this is where things began to get fuzzy, "She talked about making it look like suicide, and then she got my wand that she had knocked out of my hand...

"And next thing I remember is feelling like I didn't have to worry about anything, that everything would be okay." I paused, "And that's not me, so I knew something was wrong. I tried to fight against it, but my wand was in my hand and it was pointed here-" I gestured to my temple, "-I was saying the curse, the killing curse-" I sped up a bit in speech, "-And I stopped, the common room dorm was opening, and my wand flew out of my hand.

"Everything was fuzzy and all I could hear was Lyla... telling me to grab my wand and cruciate them because I couldn't kill myself..." I stopped, finally remembering it. "And then the feeling went away, and I could hear my name being called... like in one of those Muggle movies..." I looked down at my hands, "Professor... what's going to happen?" I asked Dumbledore.

"Everything will be fine, Ms Mayhem." Dumbledore assured me. "Thank you for telling us what happened." I nodded and the five Professors left. I took the time while no one else was in the room to look around. On the table next to the bed was many assortments of candy, chocolate, and many other things, something I had never received before.

Rae was the first one to burst ito the hospital wing and jumped onto the chair closest to my bed, "Marty, are they going to expell Lyla?" She said out of breath from running.

"I don't know." I said, "They didn't say."

"They should! She used an unforgivable and if they don't do anything about it, then it's retarded! They're practically saying since she's a pureblood she's allowed to get away with anything she wanted." Rae huffed, "We were really scared, Marty..."

I looked down at my hands, "I mean it." Rae said, "Samantha said that the way Severus blasted Lyla off the table was epic!"

"Severus?" I said, amazed that this guy, who hardly ever spoke to me, had saved my life.

"Yeah, Samantha said that Lyla was sent flying in the air, and hit the wall, knocked her unconscious and everything." Rae said amused, "She said the worst part was that she got stuck carrying her while Severus carried you."

"Carried me?" I said confused, "Why?"

"Well it's not like you were going to stand up and walk on your own." Rae teased and I let out a small laugh.

"But Regulus and Samantha got detention?" I asked, curious as to know why.

"Yeah, for a month!" Rae said, "Monday through Friday, every week for four weeks."

"Why?" I asked.

"Lyla's goons tried to come in to visit Lyla, and while in here when no one else was, they tried to finish the job that Lyla started on you." Rae said nonchalantly, "From what Samantha told me too, when her and Regulus entered the Hospital wing to come see if you had awoken, they were on both sides of your bed and were mumbling all sorts of things." I nodded, finding that a bit odd. "Samantha said that before they were even two steps into the Hospital Wing Regulus had already knocked one of them out."

"Lovely." I said with a small laugh, "Nice to know that Lyla's not the only one that would like me dead."

"Marty." Rae said rolling her eyes, "Do you know when you get out of here?"

"No." I said bluntly, "But it'd be nice."

*

It was only a day later when I was released from the Hospital Wing, which meant it was Tuesday, and that I had detention that night with Filch. When I had arrived in the common room, many of the fellow students looked at me with what appeared to be fear in their eyes. I jumped over the couch landed in between Rae and Regulus and looked from one to the other, "Why is everyone looking at me weirdly."

"Lyla Vlasic got expelled, you don't think that the whole school isn't going to know about it, do you?" Rae stated and I looked around, "Some of them are scared of you, others want to praise you. Nobody likes to be expelled."

"Tell me about it." I said scrunching my nose up. "I wasn't to fond of it either, but then again, I was an innocent man."

"You're a man?" Regulus mocked and I punched him in the arm. "I was going to ask you before but I had been in detention, when did you cut your hair?"

"Oh, Thursday night." I said remembering, "At like three in the morning."

"It looks..." Regulus paused, searching for the right word, "...nice."

"Thanks." I grinned before finally sitting down on my bum. "I liked the whole no class thing. It's really nice."

"Don't get to use to it." Rae commented, "Although your detentions should be fun."

"What do you mean?" I asked her.

"Samantha and I have Filch for a months detention." Regulus explained, "Rae said she told you what happened." He ran a hand through his hair, one of his and Sirius' nervous habits that I had noticed of them.

I nodded and leaned against Rae, something I had never done before, but felt it would be the proper time too, "Whoa, what's going on?" Rae said looking at me oddly, "I think the only time you've ever touched me is when we fell down the stairs."

"It's not like you, Marty." Regulus pointed out, "Did you hit your head when you were under the imperius curse?" I glared at Regulus who ran his hand through his hair again as he let out a small laugh. "I take that as a yes?"

"Yeah, I only hit my head when I was knocked off the couch, over the table, and missed the mantle to the fireplace." I mumbled as Regulus looked away from me, guity look on his face for bringing it up. "And besides... I did a lot of thinking."

"You can think." Rae teased, which made me hit her in the arm, not hard, but not exactly soft. "Amazing."

"I'll punch you harder if you keep that up." I sneered jokingly at her.

"Okay okay, go ahead and talk Twiggy A." Rae laughed as I glared at her again.

"Sirius kind of got mad at me the other day..." I began, "...and he opened my eyes to a bunch of things."

"Don't say sex..." Regulus groaned and I glared at him, "It was, wasn't it!"

"Disgusting and no!" I said, a bit annoyed that I was interrupted. "He said that I was a selfish, immature diva teenage girl."

"We don't think that." Rae said in the offsetting tone of hers.

"I do... well at least I do now." I said, "Sirius was right about it and I feel so stupid and foolish because I tried to pretend..."

"Pretend?" Rae and Regulus asked as Samantha came over and sat on the arm of the couch next to Rae. Severus had taken his spot at the beginning of my speech in the arm chair that Lyla had once moved in our great battle.

"I didn't think it was possible for me to be able to trust anyone again." I said, taking a glance at them all, "And I denied myself the thought of me letting myself trust anyone again..." I paused as Rae and Samantha's lips grew into a giant smile. "...I didn't think that I could have friends, and I didn't think that I had an importance to anyone but Voldemort killing me." Regulus and Severus both snorted, Samantha chugging her slip-on shoe at Severus, bouncing off his head. I took a second to snicker as Severus glared at Samantha before I continued. "And well..."

"Just say it!" Rae said shaking my shoulder that was near her.

"I have friends... people I can trust." I said with a small smile towards the two girls that knew it was coming all along. I looked at Severus who was still glaring at Samantha but gave me an attempted smile. Regulus ran his hand through his hair with what looked like a small smile forming on his lips. "And they're in Gryffindor." The mood dropped as Samantha began to rant about me being a traitor to them. "I'm just kidding!" I said laughing as Samantha had her other shoe in her hand threateningly. "I guess you could say you guys are my lumos in the dark."

"Awww." Rae and Samantha both said toppling onto me in hugs, causing the three of us to fall back onto Regulus a bit who looked like he was going to die with all the weight. "We love you too, Marty!"

"I never said I loved you guys! I just said trust! TRUST!" I said, my words muffled by their robes. Rae and Samantha were laughing as I tried to push them off, causing us to fall onto the ground between the couch and table. I was sure that we were getting odd looks from every, but at the time, I could really care less.


So what do you think of the way Marty's changed from being stubborn? lol I thought that I was going to end it here, but I'm not. Fifteen chapters total and then an epilogue. How does that sound? Any good?