Victoria Potter
By Taure
Chapter Twelve: Summer Arrives
The arrival of the Easter holiday brought with it a week of glorious sunshine. The Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, had apparently managed to persuade the Americans into trading a whole week of Californian sun for a measly bit of Scottish rain. It was quite the coup, and when the papers arrived at breakfast—as usual, in a flock of owls—they were uncharacteristically full of praise for Minister Fudge and Bartemius Crouch, the Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation.
"FUDGE WINS A SCORCHER" announced the Daily Prophet, which also featured a pull-out primer on the use of fire charms for barbecuing; "CROUCH COMEBACK?" read the Hogsmeade Herald. But it was Daphne's copy of Witch Weekly that caught Victoria's eye: it was a special swimwear edition, full of designs produced by the siren communities of the Mediterranean.
Normally, Victoria would have joined the others in excitedly pouring over the magazine, but these were not normal times. Tensions were running high between the Slytherin girls. Without a word being spoken, a carefully coordinated dance had developed: Victoria was pretending that Pansy and Daphne did not exist, and everyone else was pretending that this was completely normal.
However, it did present some practical difficulties, and breakfast was no exception. The jam was resting in front of Pansy, several places down from Victoria and tantalisingly out of reach. Unfortunately for Tracey, she had inherited the position of go-between.
"Tracey," Victoria said, "could you pass the jam, please?"
Tracey rolled her eyes. "Pass the jam, Pansy."
Without looking up from Daphne's magazine, Pansy pushed the raspberry jam forward, which Tracey in turn delivered up the table. Victoria took it with a scowl. Pansy knew she hated raspberry jam. It had all those little seeds in it that got stuck in your teeth.
"Tracey, please pass the strawberry jam."
Pansy responded before Tracey could even open her mouth. "Uh, do I look like a house-elf? Please tell Victoria to get her own jam." She still hadn't looked up from the magazine.
And so the dance continued. In the common room, Pansy would sit on the couch furthest from Victoria's cushion. When they played games, they were never on the same team. And each morning they took turns to shower at six o'clock, before everyone else got up, just so they wouldn't have to share the bathroom.
As the days passed and the new routine became established, Victoria's anger began to cool, transforming into a simmering resentment. She just didn't understand why Pansy and Daphne had felt the need to ruin everything. They had all been so happy together.
The problem wasn't that they had tricked her—she'd been expecting that—but rather the way they had done it. It was one thing to run off with the glass sphere, trying to get to Snape first (after all, Victoria herself had considered doing the same), but hexing her for good measure? That was deliberately trying to get her into trouble, just to make sure she had no chance of winning the contest.
She should have listened to Susan. Hadn't she warned Victoria not to trust them? Hadn't she pointed out that Pansy was cruel? It had been stupid to think that Pansy would honour their pact, and she hated feeling stupid. It reminded Victoria of her school reports back in the Muggle world: even now, she could hear Vernon's chortle as he announced selected highlights of her teachers' damning comments.
But life went on. Winter robes were packed away and summer robes came out of their trunks, a white dress robe with a gingham print in Slytherin green.
As a result of Victoria's strained relationships with Pansy and Daphne, she was now spending even more time with Susan. The two of them had a picnic on Sunday afternoon, finding a large, flat rock overlooking the lake where they could spread out a blanket and sit down. It was a cosy spot, out of sight of the castle due to the slope behind them. When they arrived, they unpacked a hamper full of cucumber sandwiches, chipolatas on cocktail sticks, a thick slice of quiche, a flask of pumpkin juice and, to follow, a couple of fruit scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam. They hadn't even needed to smuggle the food out of the Great Hall, as lunch during the holiday was a relaxed affair, more of a buffet than a meal, and students were allowed to take the food away with them.
While they ate, they puzzled over Snape's challenge.
"Obviously the seed goes into the flower pot," Victoria said, using one hand to stick the acorn into the potted soil while holding a sandwich in the other, "but what next? Do I break the sunlight open? That makes sense, right? Plants need sunlight."
Susan carefully tapped the glass sphere with her fingernail. "It definitely feels like you could break it easily. But what if it doesn't work? Then you'd have to go into Gryffindor all over again, just to replace this one."
"And that went so well the first time," Victoria said. "I just wish I'd taken more of the spheres… I wonder what Pansy and Daphne did with theirs, after they got disqualified."
"Fat chance of them sharing, even if they kept them," Susan said. She cheerfully snatched a chipolata and gobbled it in a single bite.
Victoria gasped. "Hey! You had three already!"
"You can have one of my sandwiches," Susan said, pushing her paper plate towards Victoria.
"Betrayed for a sausage," Victoria grumbled. She took a triangular sandwich from Susan's plate and added it to her own. "At least you didn't hex me for it."
"Hazard of being a Slytherin," Susan joked, and her hand darted forward for another chipolata. Victoria slapped it away with a laugh.
"Stop it! There's only two left!"
"Fine, fine. But speaking of Slytherin…" Susan's face turned serious, "how are things?"
"Awkward," Victoria said. "I can't see how things will ever go back to normal. Best if we all just avoid each other from now on, I reckon."
Susan made a sound of vague agreement. "So... you just never speak to them again? For six years?"
Victoria frowned. "What else can I do? We can't be friends, but we can't fight for years either. Staying away from each other works."
"You could just..."
"Could just what?"
Susan looked extremely reluctant to spit it out. "You could just let it go."
Victoria put her sandwich down in shock. "But you were the one who told me not to trust them in the first place! Now you're saying I should forgive them?"
"Not forgive," Susan said, raising her hands in a calming motion, "but maybe… move on. You can't ignore them for years, not really. Do you really want to get up at six in the morning until seventh year, just to avoid Pansy? Seems a bit much."
"Maybe," Victoria replied with a sigh. She took a chipolata and nibbled at it. "But they have to apologise first."
An apology from Pansy was not forthcoming. She had clearly decided to respond to Victoria's silent treatment in kind, acting as if she were the injured party. Daphne, on the other hand, had reacted quite differently: she was now going out of her way to be exceedingly nice to Victoria.
Several days after the start of the holiday, Victoria found the swimsuit copy of Witch Weekly resting on her pillow in the evening. A note was stuck to the cover, written in Daphne's distinctly beautiful handwriting:
I thought you might like to borrow this. The one on page 24 is perfect for you!
D xxx
Victoria scowled, but it didn't stop her from devouring every page before going to sleep. Later that week, when she stepped out of the shower at an unthinkably early hour, she discovered that someone had switched her towel with a much fluffier one. It was light pink, smelled of fresh roses and had a Warming Charm sewn into it. Victoria almost groaned with happiness when she wrapped it around her dripping body. It was like slipping your foot into a just-ironed sock. Of course, after a year of sharing the same bathroom, she knew the towel by sight: it was one of Daphne's.
It was rather annoying. After all, it was difficult to pretend that someone didn't exist when they were being so nice to you. In the face of such relentless kindness, it was inevitable that Victoria would eventually break her silence.
It happened on Friday evening in the common room. As usual, Victoria was sitting on a cushion with a book in her lap, half-listening to the conversation as she read. Even though she was reading, she sat right at the centre of the first years, her cushion positioned at the head of the coffee table. She liked it there, where she could chip in with the occasional comment without fully involving herself, and by now everyone recognised that it was her spot.
Another cushion dropped to the floor next to Victoria; a moment later it was followed by blonde hair, blue eyes and a cute, upturned nose.
"Good book?"
"Not particularly," Victoria said. It took her a moment to remember that she wasn't supposed to be speaking to Daphne. She glanced to her right, through the curtain of her own dark hair, to see Daphne giving her a brilliant smile. Victoria sighed. Now that she'd spoken, she could hardly go back to silence. "Here," she said, flicking the book closed so that Daphne could see the cover, keeping her finger inside to mark her page.
"Green Fingers by Hortensia Gardener," Daphne read, her eyebrows rising. "Never knew you were that interested in Herbology."
"I'm not. Well, I like the class, but that's more 'cause we get to do stuff," Victoria said. "No, this is for Snape's stupid acorn. No matter what I do, I can't get it to germinate."
Daphne looked down, no doubt uncomfortable around the subject of Snape's challenge. "That's bad luck. I'm afraid I'm no help on that front… Herbology's not my strong suit. Which is weird when you think about it, 'cause Potions is my best class."
Victoria shrugged, putting her book down. "I'll figure it out eventually. How did you do it, anyway? Find all the common rooms, I mean. I've been wondering for ages... you always got there before me."
"Oh, that?" Daphne said, "it's simple, really. We just asked the house-elves."
"The house-elves? I thought you were using divination!"
"I know," Daphne said with a giggle, "we saw you going around with that conker a few times."
Victoria blushed. She still wasn't sure if castanology counted as real magic, or if the common rooms were just protected from it. "But house-elves! It's so simple... I can't believe I didn't think of it."
"It was actually harder than you'd think," Daphne replied. "The little buggers are a nightmare to catch, let me tell you. House-elves aren't meant to be seen, so you'll never just run into one. We ended up having to make an awful mess and hide nearby, waiting for one to show up… they can't stand to leave a mess for long, you see."
"And then when the house-elf appears…"
"You just ask. They're ever so keen to please, once you start talking to them. I don't think they realise that we're not supposed to know where the common rooms are."
With such a reliable source of information, it was no wonder that they had beaten Victoria to every common room.
"How about you?" Daphne continued, "obviously Susan gave you Hufflepuff, but what about Ravenclaw?"
Victoria didn't much fancy going into detail about Remus Lupin. "A family friend told me."
"Oh."
Their conversation lapsed. Luckily, Draco could always be depended on to fill an awkward silence. He was currently holding court on the topic of brooms:
"... of course, Nimbus usually waits five years between new racing brooms, but they've not got much choice. If they don't take advantage of Smethwyck's Swivel Charm, they'll be left behind… still, I wouldn't be too happy if I'd just bought a Nimbus 2000..."
Daphne shifted on her cushion, moving closer. "Listen, Victoria, I just wanted to say… well, I'm sorry for how things turned out. We shouldn't have hexed you."
For a moment, Victoria was speechless. "No, you shouldn't," she said, her voice suddenly thick with emotion. There was a wobbly feeling in her throat, like she was about to cry.
"Can we go back to normal?" Daphne asked.
Until that moment, Victoria hadn't realised just how badly she'd needed to hear those words. It turned out Susan was right: she couldn't forget what happened, but she could move on.
"Yes," she said, quickly rubbing her eyes with the sleeve of her robes. "Just you, though. Pansy has to say sorry for herself."
Daphne bit her lip. "I'm sure she will."
But as the days rolled by, it became increasingly clear that Pansy was not going to apologise. To do so would first require her to recognise her wrongdoing.
Matters came to a head one morning during the second week of the holiday. It was a Tuesday, which meant it was Pansy's turn to shower early. Victoria relished her lie-in, cocooned in the warmth of her covers as the girls began to get up. Millicent was first, jumping out of bed with her usual energy, throwing on some clothes and running down to breakfast without showering. She'd recently been hanging out with Octavia O'Connor, a ginger-haired girl from the other first year dorm, and the two of them were often seen down by the quidditch pitch. Tracey came next, groaning and cursing as she rummaged through her bedside cabinet before stumbling into the bathroom.
Victoria followed. She took her time, stretching like a cat as she used a foot to push her sheets to the foot of her bed, resisting the moment of wakefulness for as long as possible. At last she was forced into action when she heard movements from Daphne's bed —there were only three showers, and the one at the end had a faulty Warming Charm. Keen to avoid a cold shower, she quickly stripped, wrapped a towel around herself and grabbed her bag of toiletries.
Daphne emerged from her bed at exactly the same moment. "No!" she cried, and the two of them raced across the room, clutching their towels and giggling. Victoria got there first, throwing the bathroom door open with a shriek of victory.
It was like stepping into a sauna. Curtains of steam hung thick in the air, clinging to every surface except the Mist-Free Mirrors above the sinks. The showers were at the far end of the room, each one set into a stone alcove, from which came the sounds of running water and Tracey's singing.
The sound of water lessened with the distinctive iron squeak of a faucet turning, but Tracey continued to sing. Victoria frowned. Had a ghost got into their bathroom again? But then a hand, very much alive, plucked a hanging towel off the hook outside one of the alcoves. There was only one person it could be, and a moment later Pansy emerged, wrapped in the towel and wringing out her black hair.
"What are you doing here?" Victoria blurted out, too annoyed to keep her silence, "it's your turn to shower early."
"Says who?" Pansy replied, "I never agreed to anything." She shook her hair out and stepped across to a sink, where she began to remove a vast array of tubes and jars from a bag. It was clear she had no intention of leaving.
"Oh, give me a break," Victoria said, "you're saying what, you just randomly decided to get up at six every other day for the last week? Do you really think anyone's going to buy that?"
Pansy rolled her eyes. "I'm saying I generously gave you some space to sulk, but it's got old fast. If you want to avoid me like a child, feel free to get up early every day, 'cause I'm tired of it."
Victoria couldn't believe it. She was doing it again—breaking an agreement and acting like she was the victim!
"You hexed me," Victoria said, slowly, like she was speaking to a toddler, "you don't get to go around acting like I'm the one in the wrong here!"
"Are you still going on about that?" Pansy replied, turning towards the mirror. She unscrewed a jar and began dabbing a white cream over her face. "Really, Vicky, when are you going to get over it?"
"When you say sorry!"
Pansy slammed the jar down on the stone of the sink and spun around to face Victoria once more, her face splotched with white. "Sorry? Fine! I'm sorry that I tried to win a competition! I'm sorry that you can't tell the difference between a game and real life! I'm sorry that you didn't figure out that tricking people was part of the rules! I'd say you're just a sore loser, but you didn't even lose, did you? We got disqualified and you're still in the running. So the way I see it, things turned out pretty well for you, didn't they?"
The room fell into silence. Suddenly, Victoria felt ashamed. Was she overreacting? Was that what everyone thought of her—that she was a poor sport who took games too seriously? She glanced back at Daphne, who was still standing in the doorway. She was looking pointedly at her feet.
The sound of water stopped. With her usual lack of shame, Tracey stepped out from the shower, vigorously drying her hair with her towel. "Is everyone finished being silly now?"
Victoria sighed. She was outnumbered. "Yes."
Things did not go back to how they had been before. How could they, after everything that had happened? Victoria and Pansy may have signed a peace treaty, but doing so did not erase the conflict from history. Nonetheless, a new normal developed, one where Victoria neither ignored Pansy nor sought her out. It was as if they were the barest of acquaintances, polite but distant, and it suited everyone just fine.
Their meagre reconciliation was well-timed, because once summer term arrived they found themselves lacking the energy to indulge in the drama of the holiday. The reason for this was simple: exam season had descended upon Hogwarts.
It was worst for the fifth and seventh years, who were about to take the Ministry's O.W.L. and N.E.W.T. exams. A frenzied studiousness had overtaken the common room as they went about their increasingly panicked revision, anyone who spoke above a whisper finding themselves the recipient of fifty glares. It felt like the room was being steadily converted into a second library, with couches and coffee tables disappearing, replaced by large desks covered with mountains of books.
The first years had end-of-year exams too, though they were only informal ones set by their teachers. Unlike the older students, whose future careers would be determined by their results, for the first years the exams had little impact beyond that of bragging rights.
Unfortunately no-one seemed to have told the teachers. The moment classes resumed, the students were greeted with a series of lectures on the importance of the upcoming exams as well as the necessity of thorough revision. To that end, the teachers had stopped introducing them to new magic and instead embarked upon a rigorous series of classes which were designed to consolidate everything they had learnt to date.
For many of Victoria's classmates, this period represented the first time they were able to successfully cast the spells they had been learning. Only now did the concepts introduced at the start of the year make sense to them; ideas which had once been opaque suddenly seeming obvious in the light of everything they had subsequently studied. Of course animation charms invoked the aspect of Jupiter; all spells involving a dominant will required it. And how had they not understood the Hierarchy of Transubstantiation? Wasn't it plain to see that dead substances needed a vital spark to become living?
Though intense, it was therefore also a time of joy as the students finally began to feel confident in their powers. Tracey was bouncing off the walls for days when she at last managed to cast the Fire-Starting Charm; Daphne annoyed them all by whistling incessantly after she got the hang of whistling a flower into bloom. In Transfiguration, the entire class gave an embarrassed Neville Longbottom a standing ovation when he succeeded in turning his matchstick pointy.
Victoria had initially considered all this revision rather pointless. After all, unlike most of her peers, she had been able to cast these spells the first time around. Hermione Granger was in a similar situation, but the two girls had each reacted rather differently.
Hermione had moved onto second year material, winning points across their classes as she displayed her advanced knowledge. She impressed McGonagall with some rudimentary transfiguration of steam, and Flitwick had practically squealed in delight when she had managed to magically repair a torn page.
Meanwhile, Victoria kept her focus on first year spells, something which caused Hermione to send many smug looks in her direction. She tried not to let it get to her, secure in the belief that Hermione was making a mistake by moving on so quickly. As Victoria looked back upon her earlier work, she was seeing entirely new connections which had previously eluded her, and she quickly came to realise that successfully casting a spell was only the first step on the path to true mastery. There was so much more to each of the apparently simple spells they had learnt: while Susan was confidently levitating objects of increasing size, Victoria was figuring out how to make ten float with a single spell; while the class solidified water into ice beneath Professor McGonagall's exacting eye, Victoria was learning how to solidify wine into grapes.
Though less flashy than Hermione's shows of advanced magic, Victoria got a thrill every time she manipulated a spell to some slightly different purpose. It reminded her of the time before Hogwarts, back when she had been experimenting with magic all on her own, coaxing her powers to follow her will, a visceral connection to magic that learning spells by rote just couldn't provide. It was as if she had been, until that moment, no more than a tourist with a phrase book, but now she was having a proper conversation.
When all was said and done, she found herself enjoying their revision classes so much that she was sorry to see them end.
The exams were upon them in short order, just a few weeks after the end of Easter. As well as written papers, they had a practical test in each subject except for History of Magic, their final grade being the average of the two. It was a gruelling couple of weeks, filled with cramped hands from writing, long sessions in the library between exams and, after their Astronomy practical, very little sleep.
Victoria excelled. When Professor Flitwick, sitting with a feather before him, asked her to levitate something, she swept the Professor, the table and the feather up into the air with a single "Wingardium Leviosa!". In Potions, she knew she had brewed a perfect Anti-Hurling Tonic, and she was quite happy with her Herbology paper, where she had correctly identified all the differences between mundane and venomous nettles.
Friday afternoon saw the first years lined along the Transfiguration corridor, awaiting their final exam. There was an unmistakable buzz in the air, a sense that the release of summer was just around the corner. They just had to get through one short test.
A door opened. "Abbott, Hannah," called Professor Winters, one of the Transfiguration teachers, and a plump blonde girl headed into her classroom. A moment later McGonagall followed suit, beckoning Susan to come forward.
Victoria gave Susan a hug before she left. "G'luck."
The wait was intolerable, short though it was. Six minutes later Susan emerged from McGonagall's classroom looking very relieved. She was assaulted with a storm of questions the moment she returned.
"Is it hard?"
"What did you do?"
"Please tell me there's no shaping."
Susan simply shook her head and pushed through the crowd. "I'm not allowed to talk about it," she said repeatedly as she made her way down the corridor. "Sorry!" She caught Victoria's eye and gave her a thumbs up before heading off.
McGonagall reappeared. "Boot, Terry!"
And so it went. Some people were quick, like Susan. Hermione took about ninety seconds. Others took a lot longer, though no one was gone for more than fifteen minutes. Victoria supposed there was some kind of time limit in place—if you couldn't do it, they just took pity on you and let you go.
Soon enough—
"Potter, Victoria," McGonagall called.
The Transfiguration classroom had been stripped bare. The posters had been turned to face the walls, and all the tables and chairs were gone. In their place was a large wooden chest, a scroll of parchment resting on its top, and to its side a pool of water had been cut into the flagstone floor.
McGonagall made her way to a chair in the corner and conjured a clipboard. "Good afternoon, Miss Potter. This test consists of a single task, which is designed to assess the three skills you have studied this year. Using the items in front of you and the magic of transfiguration alone, you are to open the locked chest. Do you have any questions?"
Victoria shook her head, her mind whirring. Was she supposed to transfigure the chest? It was a mixture of wood and metal, but they hadn't covered combined substances yet. Even worse, the chest was much bigger than anything she'd transfigured to date. But what alternatives were there?
"Then you may begin."
Desperately hoping for some clue, Victoria reached for the scroll on top of the chest. It contained a detailed drawing of a key. Of course.
It was simple: using the Solidification Spell, they were to turn some of the water into ice. Once in that form, they could use the Shaping Spell to form it into the shape of a key, using the drawing as a guide. Then it was a simple matter of using the Transubstantiation Spell to turn the ice key into something less brittle, so that it wouldn't snap in the lock.
Victoria took her wand from the loop at her waist, relief flooding her body. It would be over in a matter of seconds. But just as she opened her mouth to utter the first incantation, something very strange happened. A new awareness came to her, like the rush of sound following a pop of the ears, when suddenly she would realise, days after having gone swimming, that the world had been on mute.
The world changed.
The moment she thought of the Solidification Spell, she saw how it would flow into the Shaping Spell, forming a single, unified process; and the same in turn for the Transubstantiation Spell. They weren't separate spells, really—they were all different aspects of the same process. It was like running. You didn't think about lifting one leg up, then pushing off with the other… once you knew how, you just did it.
Her wand jabbed forward, tight grip, slight twist. No words were spoken. The water shimmered, and at the centre of the pool a metal key coalesced. Dazed, Victoria knelt down and fished the key from the water. What had she just done?
The key fit perfectly; with a click, the chest swung open.
Victoria glanced at McGonagall, who was looking at her with something suspiciously like pride. "An impressive display," she said, placing her clipboard on her lap. "Are you aware of what you just did?"
She shook her head.
McGonagall smiled. "In class, I have referred to transfiguration as an art. This is no slip of the tongue. You should understand that transfiguration is as much a technique as it is a set of spells... for those who truly grasp the principles, who see the art as a whole, spells are quite unnecessary. Though I must confess, I have never seen a student perform transfiguration by technique before their fourth year." She cocked her head. "Perhaps it relates to your particular abilities? But no, not even Miss Tonks…"
As McGonagall began to talk to herself, Victoria looked at her wand, wondering if she'd be able to duplicate the feat. "So… does this mean I can transfigure anything?"
Professor McGonagall's focus snapped back to Victoria. "Why don't you try?"
She imagined the chest forming into a lion, huge and ferocious, and, just as she did before, jabbed her wand. Nothing happened. If Victoria didn't know better, she could have sworn she saw McGonagall's lips twitching.
"Transfiguration by technique comes from your ability to see the connections between different processes," McGonagall explained. "As with most magic, there is no shortcut to mastery. You must first learn the component parts before you can put them together."
Victoria couldn't help but feel disappointed. "I understand."
"Good." McGonagall took out a pocket watch. "Your exam is now complete; please proceed to the Great Hall for activities with Professor Trelawney. And remember, not a word to your fellow students."
That night, a storm broke over Hogwarts. The deep rumble of thunder could be heard even in the dungeons, shaking the castle to its roots. Forked lightning lit up the sky, striking the peak of the Astronomy Tower again and again, and rain fell in solid sheets.
Victoria woke suddenly, a hand shaking her awake. She squinted at the figure silhouetted between the curtains of her four-poster bed.
"What…? Daphne?"
"Come quick!"
Daphne tossed Victoria her dressing gown. The others were getting up too, stumbling out of bed and lighting candles. Outside the dorm, footsteps could be heard rushing up and down the staircase. The whole of Slytherin was on the move.
"What's going on?" Victoria asked. "What time is it?"
The door swung open, bright light from the landing assaulting Victoria's eyes. A thatch of messy red hair appeared—Gemma Farley, the fifth year prefect.
"Everyone ready?" she said, her eyes landing on Victoria, who was still struggling sleepily into her dressing gown. "Hurry up, let's go!"
She led them out of the common room and into the castle, the sound of thunder increasing in volume as they ascended towards the surface. Tracey's hand found Victoria's, clutching it tightly every time another boom rattled the castle. Other groups of students were out and about, some of themrunning and shouting; the whole school was awake, curfew forgotten, and everyone seemed to be heading in the same direction.
The lightning made itself known the moment they reached the ground floor. It was immediately clear that this was no normal storm: regular flashes illuminated the corridors with a harsh white light, and rolling thunder followed on its heels, so deep and powerful that Victoria could feel it in her chest. Tracey would jump in shock with every lighting strike, a small whine escaping her mouth. The rest of the girls were in little better state. None of them had ever experienced a storm like this.
"Where are we going?" Pansy asked after a particularly long rumble of thunder, "shouldn't we be staying away from the storm?"
Gemma pushed on. "Trust me, you'll want to get a good look at this one."
They approached the quadrangle outside the library, where a large number of students had gathered to watch the storm. The cloisters were packed with those huddling away from the heavy rain, but the crowd was now growing so large that it was spilling over into the soaked courtyard.
"Oh, for goodness' sake," Gemma said, and she pointed her wand at a group of drenched first years. "Impervious!" Her spell redirected the rain around them, repulsed like one magnet from another. Under normal conditions the effect would have been invisible, but that night the rain was so thick that it formed a watery dome around the spell.
Lightning flashed, and this time Victoria saw it, a crackling, branching fork which crossed the sky rather than shooting downwards, casting an almost purplish light on the clouds around it. It seemed to go on forever, a new branch shooting off even as another faded. The crowd cried out, some of them in appreciation, others in fear.
Tracey was still gripping Victoria's hand, but now a grin was on her face. "Awesome."
"Out of the way!"
Professor McGonagall hurried past, students parting before her. She was in her nightclothes, fluffy slippers and all, and was escorted by two clanking suits of animated armour. "Back to bed, all of you!" she shouted, not breaking her stride, and she barely seemed to notice that her command was universally ignored. She made her way across the courtyard and ducked back inside the castle though a side door.
"What's that about, do you reckon?" Pansy asked. It was the question on everyone's lips, wild speculation making its way around the crowd.
Not long after McGonagall had disappeared back into the castle, the enormous gamekeeper Hagrid followed in her footsteps, accompanied by Professor Flitwick. Hagrid was carrying a crossbow the size of a small car, an equally oversized hound walking to heel.
"... you have shut the gates, I assume?" Flitwick was saying. He was almost running to keep up with Hagrid's long strides. "He mustn't be allowed to escape!"
"Locked 'er down completely," Hagrid responded, "only way out now's through the forest, an' I don't fancy ev'n his chances there."
Flitwick went through the same door as McGonagall; Hagrid stayed behind, taking up a position outside the door, his crossbow pointed unwaveringly at it.
It was then that Victoria felt something strange: the back of her neck prickled, a shiver running down her spine, and suddenly the wind picked up, blowing in every direction, whipping her hair and dressing gown as it swirled around her. She wasn't alone in feeling it; the entire crowd gasped.
"There!" a boy shouted, "on the third floor!"
All eyes followed his pointed finger to a line of windows looking down on the courtyard. Flashes of light were coming from within, blue and red and silver, and then a mighty voice could be heard through the whistling wind, echoing with power:
"...ima car...em!"
The storm died. Rain became drizzle, and the castle fell into darkness as the lightning petered out. The students waited. And waited.
Eventually, when nothing more seemed likely to happen, they returned to bed.
The end of term approached. While the upper years were still finishing off their exams, the first years took it easy, the teachers perhaps recognising that their students' minds were now closed for business until next September.
Of course they still had to attend class, but no new magic was expected of them. Professor Flitwick had them creating posters depicting wand positions to replace the fading ones on his walls, and he even let them listen to the wireless while they played around with paint, glue and stencils. Professor Flamel spent his classes regaling them with fascinating tales of medieval France, and in Herbology, Professor Sprout showed them how to make daisy chains. Even Snape, in an unusual concession to "end of term frivolity", performed a series of demonstrations which largely involved making things explode. He did spend most of that lesson making snide comments regarding Neville's ability to achieve the same results by merely looking at a cauldron, but for Snape that was positively jolly.
But it was Defence Against the Dark Arts that had everyone talking. The class had been cancelled and it was becoming clear that Professor Quirrell would not be returning from wherever he had disappeared to. The school was alive with rumours: he'd been caught having an affair with Professor Vector, the Arithmancy Mistress; he'd been eaten by his turban; he had stuttered so hard that his head had exploded.
Nobody knew the truth of the matter, and the teachers weren't telling.
The last day of term coincided with the conclusion of the quidditch season. Ravenclaw beat Gryffindor handily, crushing the latter's hopes of winning the House Cup, and that evening, after the end-of-year feast, a party took place in Slytherin common room to celebrate their victory.
With swing playing on the gramophone and a plentiful quantity of butterbeer, the mood was certainly upbeat. Several bottles of elf-made wine had been acquired and were making their way around the older students, some of whom had perhaps drunk a bit too much. Next to the gramophone, Rebecca Hale was clutching a glass and dancing in a manner that would have horrified Professor McGonagall, but which was greeted with enthusiastic cheers from the boys.
Victoria was not participating. She had secluded herself in a corner with her flowerpot, acorn and glass sphere of sunlight, a pile of herbology books in front of her. Though she would have dearly liked to join the party, she simply couldn't afford to waste a single minute, and nothing Daphne or Tracey said could change her mind. If she didn't make the acorn grow that evening, she would fail Snape's challenge. That wasn't an option. She'd never failed at anything since she started at Hogwarts.
"Having fun?"
It was Draco, his blond hair slicked back as always, a wild grin on his face. He threw himself into the chair opposite her and put his feet up on a stool.
"You seem cheerful," Victoria said.
Draco looked around surreptitiously. "Flint gave me some wine," he said, "you could probably get some too, if you asked nicely. I saw Becca letting Daphne have more than a little out of her glass."
Victoria snorted. "Figures. But no thanks—I'm busy." She gestured to the books in front of her.
"So I see," Draco said, "honestly, I thought you'd have given up by now. You must really want that pass."
"All the books on alchemy are in the Restricted Section," Victoria explained, "and Professor Flamel won't teach me alchemy unless I already know some."
Draco's eyebrows rose. "Flamel promised to teach you alchemy?"
"Um, I wouldn't say promised… but he wouldn't have tested me if he wasn't open to the idea, would he?"
"Well then," he said, taking his feet off the stool and sitting up properly, "what seems to be the problem? Perhaps I can help."
It was just like Draco to think that he would be able to immediately solve a problem that had been troubling Victoria for months.
"Don't worry about it," she said. "I wouldn't want to ruin your party."
"Nonsense!" he declared. "Now, let's see…" He examined the flowerpot and acorn. "So I know these are from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw… which means this—" he picked up the glass sphere "—must be from Gryffindor. No idea how you got in there."
Victoria blinked. "You got the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw items?"
"Of course," Draco said, "those are the easy ones, after all. But what's the problem? You've got the items, why haven't you just combined them?"
"I don't know how," Victoria explained, "I've waved the sunlight over the seed, and tried burying it in there, but it doesn't do anything. If nothing else works, I think I'll just try smashing it, but I'd prefer to avoid that if… what?"
Draco was laughing. "Could it be? At last, I know something that the great Victoria Potter doesn't!"
"You actually know the answer?" Victoria said, dumbfounded. How could he, when he hadn't even collected all the items? "Tell me!"
But Draco just grinned. "Hold your hippogriffs! If this pass is so important to you, I think I should get a fair reward for my help, don't you?"
Victoria's jaw clenched. She was so close! "What do you want?"
"Half," he said, "you have the pass half the time, I have it the other half."
"That's not fair. I got all the items, you only got two."
Draco just smirked at that. "But you still need my help to win, don't you? And I wouldn't be able to win without that sphere. So the way I see it, that makes us equal partners."
"Fine," Victoria said, crossing her arms. Once again, she had no choice. "But I'm not giving you the sphere. You tell me how to put them together, and I go to Snape to get the prize. Not you."
"But—"
"Take it or leave it."
She had learnt that lesson with Pansy. There was no way she was going to go on trust again.
Draco sighed and extended his hand. "Deal."
They shook on it.
"Well? Victoria said. "How do I do it?"
He chuckled again. "I still can't believe I have to tell you this… there are four houses at Hogwarts, not three."
Victoria gaped at him, his words taking a moment to register. "No…" She covered her face with her hands, groaning as Draco continued to laugh. It was so painfully, embarrassingly obvious. How had she not seen it? Why hadn't Susan pointed it out?
But that wasn't fair. Susan only knew about the challenge through Victoria, and, thinking back, Victoria had clearly told her that she had to retrieve items from Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Gryffindor. It had never occurred to her that there was an item in Slytherin too.
She looked at the objects. It was clear what she needed. "Water!" She leapt to her feet, snatched the items up, and ran to the stairs. Draco's footsteps followed, and they raced to the top. He overtook her somewhere around the fifth year dorms.
The sound of rushing water greeted her at the summit, past the seventh year landing, where a ladder led up to a long, stone tunnel. Victoria arrived just in time to see Draco's form disappearing through the waterfall at the end of the tunnel, and she raced to follow him into the cavern beyond.
It was as beautiful as it had been the first time: below them, bisected by a stone bridge, a deep pool of water was fed by a series of overflowing pools, and above them were hundreds of free-floating fairy lights, their glow just enough to see by.
"What now?" Draco said, "we didn't bring any swimwear!"
Victoria pointed to a series of stone ledges which led down to the highest of the pools. "That'll do!" She passed the flowerpot to Draco and slipped the glass sphere into her robe pocket. Doing so freed her hands, essential for the treacherous scramble down from the bridge to the top ledge. The last thing she wanted was to fall into the pool while still in her robes, especially given how cold the water looked.
"Now pass me the pot!" she called when she reached the ledge below, having to shout over the sound of the waterfall. Draco did so with only a few nervous glances at the water, leaning over as far as he dared while Victoria reached back up towards the bridge. Her fingers brushed clay, and then the pot was in her hands.
A few careful jumps and she was beside the pool.
Kneeling down, she made sure the acorn was still buried properly, then used both hands to cup freezing water into the pot. "And now the moment of truth." She fished the sphere out of her pocket and, all doubts cast aside, cracked the glass on the rim of the pot like an egg; sunlight burst forth, filling the cave with its warm, golden rays. The fairies buzzed angrily, but Victoria only had eyes for the pot. A sapling sprouted from the soil, its slender stem rising to a height of almost six inches, and from its top grew three green oak leaves.
"Yes!" she cried, pumping both fists into the air, and she could have cried from the surge of deep satisfaction that filled her. Finally, after so many hours of work, after all the frustration and betrayal, she'd done it.
Draco offered to take the plant while she ascended back towards the bridge, but she refused to let it leave her hands. Could she trust him, or would he run off with it and claim her victory? She couldn't risk it. Not when she was so close.
They rushed downstairs, pushing their way through the busy common room and out into the corridor leading to Snape's office.
"You will keep to our deal, won't you?" Draco asked as they walked, a hint of nervousness in his voice. No doubt he had realised that, if she wanted to, Victoria could now easily ditch him.
"Don't worry," she said, "I'm not Pansy. You'll get the pass—half of each month, just like I promised."
Draco looked relieved. "Good. You're not the only one who thinks Pansy was wrong, you know. Father always says it's important to have a reputation for keeping your word. If you don't, then who's ever going to do business with you?"
"Sounds like good advice."
They stopped outside Snape's door. "This is it," Victoria said, suddenly nervous. What if she'd done something wrong?
"Go on," Draco said. "I'll be waiting."
Victoria knocked.
"Enter!"
She did so. The interior of Snape's office was in disarray, half-filled boxes everywhere, books and jars of ingredients strewn higgledy-piggledy across every surface. In the midst of it all loomed Professor Snape, arms raised like a conductor, his brow furrowed in concentration as objects sailed through the air into boxes. A number of them had clearly missed their targets, but to be fair, he wasn't using a wand.
Victoria wasn't sure which surprised her more: the fact that someone else could do wandless magic, or the revelation that the teachers didn't live in the castle during the holidays.
Snape's dark eyes fell upon Victoria's plant and he lowered his hands. "Miss Potter. Cutting it a bit close, aren't we?" She didn't quite know what to say to that. It was true—she should have figured it out much sooner.
He proceeded to examine the sapling, holding a magnifying glass to the leaves, tapping the stem with his wand, and even sniffing it. Victoria tried not to fidget as he did so, though his close proximity made her rather uncomfortable.
"Very well," he said at last, "it appears to be the genuine article. May I?" He took the plant from her and placed on it his desk. "If I recall, I offered a year's pass to the Restricted Section?"
Victoria nodded eagerly, and Snape rummaged through the desk for a roll of parchment and a quill. He scribbled something on the parchment, tore off the end, and passed it to her. It read:
I, Professor Severus Snape, Head of Slytherin House and Potions Master of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, hereby grant the bearer access to the Restricted Section until 1 June 1993.
"Thank you!" she said with a grin. She was going to spend the entire summer dreaming about the books she could read.
But Snape just sighed. "Another year, another disappointment."
Victoria frowned. "What do you mean, sir? I completed the challenge, didn't I?"
"You completed the challenge I described," Snape said, "but you failed the one I didn't."
"I don't understand."
"Do you know what this is?" he asked, gesturing towards the plant. She shook her head. "Precisely. For your information, Potter, it is an extremely rare species known as the Founders' Oak. It grows only under very special conditions—namely, when its four ingredients are obtained through acts exemplifying the qualities valued by the founders of Hogwarts."
Suddenly the challenge made sense. She'd obtained the flowerpot through friendship, the acorn by cleverness, the sunlight through bravery, and the water… she'd got that by striking a bargain. "You tricked us! You couldn't make it yourself, could you?"
Snape smiled. It was not a pleasant smile, all yellow teeth and glimmering eyes. "Indeed. For an adult wizard, an act of bravery would require a much greater investment of time and effort… but for an eleven-year-old? Passing through fire is bravery enough."
Victoria couldn't believe it. He was supposed to be a teacher! Using kids to collect rare plants was cheating! And she'd just given it to him. "So what's so special about it? The oak, I mean."
"The tree, once mature, is a powerful anchor for spells of all kinds… so long as the tree survives, the spell tied to it cannot be broken. Legend has it that there are seven such trees within the Forbidden Forest, planted there by the founders themselves, and that the school's protective enchantments are bound to them. Now do you understand? You just exchanged a powerful magical artefact, without knowing its true value, for a scrap of paper."
She looked down at the pass in her hands. Suddenly, it didn't bring her nearly as much joy. "It doesn't matter," she said stubbornly, trying to persuade herself as much as him, "I got what I wanted."
Snape's lip curled. "Foolish girl. If you truly believe that, then not only have you failed the challenge, you have also failed to learn the lesson it imparts. Now leave me, before I lose my patience. As you can see, I'm quite busy."
The next morning, Victoria woke to chaos. Slytherin was in disarray, littered with robes, books and potions equipment. Contrary to appearances, however, Peeves the Poltergeist had not managed to break in overnight. A rather more benign cause was to blame: the Hogwarts Express was due to depart at ten o'clock and the majority of the house had yet to pack.
Adder Dorm was no exception. Only Pansy was ready to go, her enormous wardrobe pressed, folded and neatly arranged within her trunk days ago. She'd even organised it by colour. The rest of them had barely started: Millicent was still sleeping, Tracey was swearing as she rummaged through a mountain of dirty laundry, and Daphne's trunk was already full, despite the fact that she still had over half her robes (which equaled Pansy's in volume, if not organisation) piled on her bed.
"It doesn't make sense!" Daphne was saying, "it all fit at the start of the year!"
Pansy laughed from her perch on top of her trunk, where she was eating a slice of toast while watching Daphne pack like it was a spectator sport. "Last time it was packed by a house-elf. You haven't folded it properly, of course it's not going to fit."
Being generally tidy (a habit instilled by the Dursleys), and having much less stuff than the other girls, Victoria was the next to finish. Only a tower of library books remained, taken out over the course of the year and never returned. She sighed—she was going to have to skip breakfast. Books levitating before her, she headed off to the library where she joined the long queue of students returning books at the last minute. The librarian Madam Pince glared at each one of them, her beady eyes checking the books fastidiously for any sign of damage. The whole process took so long that even Millicent had finished packing by the time Victoria returned to the dorm.
They made their way to the entrance hall, which put the chaos of Slytherin house to shame. Pandemonium ruled: the entire student body was milling around, an obstacle course of trunks, owls and cats, and the noise was incredible, a boisterous racket of shouting and laughter.
"Out of the way!" a boy shouted, just before a pretty girl ran past, jumping over Tracey's trunk. The boy followed immediately after, almost knocking Daphne to the ground.
"Moon!" he shouted, "give me my wand back!"
Pansy sniffed. "Those two are a hazard."
They headed further into the crowd, wanting to get as close to the doors as possible—that was where the carriages would be leaving from. Professor McGonagall was standing next to the entrance, her voice ringing out above the hubbub: "Remember your reports!" she was saying, waving a sheaf of parchment above her head, "we expect your parents to sign them!"
The crowd lurched forward when the doors opened, and it wasn't long before they were climbing into a carriage. Victoria looked back at Hogwarts for the entire ride to the station, trying to fix the sight of the castle in her memory. It was going to be a long summer, and the Muggle world was going to feel dreadfully dull compared to the excitement of magic.
The journey back to London was therefore filled with a sense of approaching doom, a feeling which intensified when the girls opened their reports. Victoria had of course received an Outstanding in all her subjects, but that wasn't what worried her. No, the concerning thing was the short notice accompanying the report:
Students are reminded that the use of unsupervised magic while under the age of seventeen is strictly forbidden by the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Sorcery.
Victoria sulked for the rest of the journey, staring glumly out the window with her forehead pressed against the glass. She was to be cut off not only from Hogwarts and her friends, but also from magic itself. It was so unfair!
Mountains became hills; hills became farmland. The signs of Muggle civilisation began to appear, with electrical lines crossing overhead and walls sprayed with graffiti lining the tracks. The trolley witch distributed sandwiches and juice, and soon after that they pulling into Platform Five and a Half at King's Cross Station.
The students spilled out onto the platform where their families awaited them. Hugs, kisses, and even some tears followed. Victoria hung back from it all, having no one to greet her. The Dursleys would be waiting on the Muggle side.
"Victoria! There you are!"
It was Susan, her trunk and father in tow.
"Hello, Mister Bones," Victoria said, greeting the lanky man with a little bob that was almost a curtsey.
"I thought I told you to call me Bruce?" he said, looking down at her with kind, brown eyes. "You're going to need to remember my name if you're spending the summer with us, after all!"
Hope fluttered in Victoria's heart. "Stay with you?" She looked between Susan and Mr Bones; Susan was beaming.
"Still got to sort out all the details with Dumbledore, of course," Mr Bones said, waving his hand, "security and whatnot. But you should be with us for August, if you've no objection?"
Victoria pounced on Susan, enveloping her in a tight hug
"Thankyou-thankyou-thankyou!"
Mr Bones smiled. "I'll take that as a yes. Shall we?"
They made for the portal to the Muggle world, where the Dursleys were waiting, dressed in their Sunday finest. Vernon's face reddened the moment he saw her; Petunia glanced around nervously. Victoria grinned and swished her robes a little as she walked towards them, watching as Vernon's eye began to twitch.
Mr Bones extended a hand in greeting. "You must be Victoria's family."
"Extended family," Vernon said, a battle playing out on his face as he stared at Mr Bones' hand. Clearly he was struggling to decide which was worse: touching a wizard, or being rude in public. Eventually he settled upon gripping Mr Bones' hand extremely tightly. "A pleasure to meet you. Now come on girl, before too many people see you in that ridiculous get-up."
The Boneses looked distinctly nonplussed, but Vernon was already striding away, Petunia and Dudley scurrying behind him.
Mr Bones coughed. "Charming fellow."
"Er, see you soon, I guess," Victoria said, feeling rather embarrassed about the whole thing. "Write me?"
Susan hugged her again. "Twice a week! And, um, try to have a good holiday." She scowled at Vernon's retreating back.
"Don't worry about the Dursleys. I know exactly how to handle them."
And then Victoria was off, hurrying after her family, calling out at the top of her voice so that all the station could hear:
"Uncle Vernon, wait! Don't you want to see my magic report? I got an Outstanding in Potions, you know!"
End of Part One