Author's Note: This is part one of a double bill. The next chapter is already complete (at 10,000 words) and will be posted in a few days.

Chapter Twenty-Three: Reflections

Victoria's detention took place the very next day, robbing her of a gloriously sunny February morning. While the rest of the school emptied out into the grounds to spend their Sunday playing quidditch or wandering around the lake, Victoria was forced to report to Professor Flitwick by the greenhouses.

It was slightly surreal, returning there after the capture of the boggart. She almost felt as if she had imagined the entire experience, so peaceful were the surroundings—birds were singing from the trees, and the crisp air faintly echoed with the sound of distant laughter—but the evidence of her little adventure was soon encountered.

Professor Flitwick was waiting for her by the east gate. "Good morning, Miss Potter. This way, please."

He led her through the warren of cobbled paths to greenhouse four, the very greenhouse which the troll-boggart had smashed when turning a corner at speed. The debris was still littered across the ground, covering it with cracked glass and splintered wood. At first, Victoria thought that he'd figured out that she was responsible, and her stomach tightened with dread as she anticipated a doubling of her punishment—but fortunately, Professor Flitwick was none the wiser.

"As you can see, we have a vandal on the loose!" he said, his voice squeaking with disapproval. "Professor Sprout discovered this last night."

Victoria tried to sculpt her expression into one of surprise. "How terrible!" she said, hoping she didn't sound too relieved. "Who would do such a thing?"

"We may never know," Flitwick said. "In all my years at Hogwarts, I've rarely witnessed such shameless destruction. Not since… well, not since your father was a student here, as a matter of fact."

The comparison was concerningly insightful. Was it just her guilty conscience, or was he looking at her with newly suspicious eyes?

"Well, sir, there's always the Weasley twins," she said, trying to head off his train of thought. "Or the Heir, of course. Maybe he did this."

Flitwick raised a bushy eyebrow. "Really, Miss Potter, I wouldn't have thought an intelligent girl like you would set store by those rumours. When you think about it, there's very little evidence that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened again."

"But—"

Victoria's objection died on her tongue. Again? Was Flitwick saying that the Chamber of Secrets had been opened before? If that was public knowledge, she certainly hadn't heard of it, and none of the other Slytherins had mentioned it either. She turned back to the greenhouse, attempting to conceal her reaction.

"Can't you just fix it with the Repair Charm?"

"Oh, certainly," Flitwick said, apparently unaware that he had just let important information slip. "Yes, the Repair Charm would fix it in a jiffy, but then what would you do for your detention? Your task for today is to fix the greenhouse."

Victoria stared at the wreck of splintered wood and smashed glass. "Uh... how? I don't know the Repair Charm."

Professor Flitwick chuckled. "Be creative, my dear! Why, you might even have fun!"

"If you say so, sir."

It was better than writing lines, at least. Hoping that inspiration would strike while she worked, she decided to clear up the mess first.

"Locomotor glass!" She swiped her wand in a circle, intending for the glass to gather into a single pile, but the spirit of the goshawk continued to resist her. Instead of gathering, the glass scattered in every direction. She scowled at her wand.

"It's quite unlike you to struggle with a charm," Flitwick said, looking quite serious now. "Your choice of the goshawk… it was against my better judgement, but I allowed it on account of your advanced studies. Still… perhaps it's time to consider changing your totem to something more appropriate. I'm sure you'd catch up to the rest of the class in no time."

Victoria blushed and ducked her head, unable to meet the Professor's sympathetic gaze. The taste of failure was not familiar. It was so tempting to take up his offer, to switch to the hummingbird as she had first intended, just to avoid that look. But she could already hear what Susan would say. It was just like duelling. She could quit and take the easy way out, or she could stick with it, work hard, and overcome her problems.

She'd eventually learnt to block spells, hadn't she?

"I can do it," Victoria said, her voice firm. "I just need more practice."

Professor Flitwick hummed with scepticism. "Very well. But in the meantime, you've a greenhouse to fix. How are you going to tidy all this up?"

Victoria shrugged. "The long way, I guess. Scopus!"

She moved her wand forward with a scooping motion, as if holding the handle of a broom, and the rubble was pushed forward. Repeating the movement several times, eventually she swept the broken glass, metal and wood into a pile which could be levitated.

"Wingardium Leviosa!"

While the Locomotion Charm may have been beyond her, there was nothing wrong with her Levitation Charm. The mixed wreckage floated up into the air, where it hovered at waist height.

"Be right back!" Victoria said, and she wandered off to fetch a wheelbarrow from behind the compost heaps. She returned to Professor Flitwick, positioned the wheelbarrow underneath the floating debris, and allowed the Levitation Charm to fail.

"Good," Flitwick said, and he vanished the contents of the wheelbarrow with a wave of his wand. "But what about the greenhouse?"

"I'll have to transfigure it," she said, examining the broken greenhouse with a critical eye. It had a wooden frame, with steel joints holding the beams of wood together. It wasn't anything too complicated, but it was big—much bigger than anything she had transfigured before.

"So you'll create a new greenhouse, rather than fixing the old one?" Flitwick asked. "Yes, I suppose that works. Well then, I'll leave you to it."

Without another word, he conjured himself a colourful deck chair, summoned a book out of thin air, and settled down to read in the sun.

"Right." Victoria returned her attention to the greenhouse. She supposed it would make sense to start with the wooden frame. Running her wand along the length of a beam, she coaxed the wood to lengthen, the jagged, splintered end smoothing out as it grew upwards. It was a slow process, and several times Victoria had to start the spell afresh when it seemed to run out of steam, but eventually she was able to produce a tall post which looked more or less identical to the others.

No doubt McGonagall could have done it with a single jab of her wand. She sighed. "One down, four to go."

She repeated the process again and again, the morning wearing on as the wood seemed to grow with a glacial pace. Was that perhaps because wood was a living material, familiar only with natural growth over the course of many seasons? It was an interesting thought, and it gave her an idea.

For the last post, she tried something different. She listened to the twittering birds. She looked up and felt the February sun warm her face. She thought of bluebells and the bleating of newborn lambs. Spring was coming, and with it came new life and growth. She let that sense fill her and cast the spell one more time, now infused with the spirit of spring.

The wood extended eagerly, as if reaching towards the sun, and in a matter of seconds it topped out at the same height as the others.

Victoria smiled with quiet satisfaction, not even frustrated by the fact that she'd wasted so much time struggling with the first four posts. There was nothing she loved more than figuring out a new piece of magic on her own—especially in transfiguration, where everything just made so much sense.

The rest of the greenhouse didn't take too long to finish. The metal joints were a bit tricky to position, with more than one falling to the ground as she tried to get the roof into place, but a few Levitation Charms were enough to sort that out. Once the frame was in place, it was just a matter of transfiguring panes of glass to fill the spaces between the beams of wood.

"All done?" Professor Flitwick said, looking up from his book. "Very impressive, I must say! It looks as good as new! I'd give you points, but since this is a detention… well, you'll just have to be satisfied with a job well done."

"Thank you," Victoria said, though something about Flitwick's praise troubled her. A moment later it hit her: the greenhouse was as good as new, and it stuck out like a sore thumb for it. All the greenhouses around them were covered with ivy. "Hang on a moment."

She approached one of the other greenhouses and used the Cutting Charm to sever a length of ivy. Then she returned to the newly transfigured greenhouse and positioned the cutting at the base of one of the wooden beams. She licked a finger and rubbed her spit on the base of the stem, encouraging roots to sprout and burrow into the soil, and then she was whistling the ivy into growth, using a high, piercing note just as Madam Bloom had taught them. The ivy climbed up the wood, wedging itself into tight spaces, twisting its way towards the roof and spreading out across the window panes, until the newly transfigured section looked just like all the others.

"There," Victoria said, stepping back to review her work. "Now I'm done."

Flitwick smiled broadly. "Professor Sprout will be pleased. Well then, I believe that's your detention served. Your Sunday is now your own… but, if I may make a suggestion, perhaps it would be best spent practising your Locomotion Charm."

As much as Victoria would have liked to spend the rest of her day remedying Professor Flitwick's poor opinion of her Locomotion Charm, she had more pressing matters to attend to. After a quick visit to the Slytherin dorms to change into a nice dress robe, she made her way back out into the grounds with the Pandora and foe glass weighing down her bag.

It didn't take long to find Susan, who was hanging out with a group of Hufflepuffs by the lake, a wide-trunked oak protecting them from the stiff breeze coming off the water. They noticed her when she was still some distance away, beckoning for her to come and join them, and Victoria squinted to make them out. There was Hannah, Susan's closest friend in Hufflepuff, a plump girl with long, straw-coloured hair; pale-faced Justin, now fully recovered from his encounter with the Heir; Ernie Macmillan, a stocky, talkative boy who was in Victoria's duelling group; and Susan, who was lounging in a ray of sun, a crocus tucked into her copper-red hair.

As Victoria approached, the sound of the wireless carried through the air, playing what sounded suspiciously like Muggle music—something that never happened among Slytherins. A moment later she recognised the singer, the familiar voice of Kylie Minogue greeting her like an old friend.

"I should visit you guys more often," she said as she arrived at the group. "Honestly, there's only so much Weird Sisters a girl can take."

Justin laughed. "One song is enough for me. They all sound the same, don't they?"

"They do not!" Hannah gasped. "You just won't give them a chance! Tell him, Ernie."

Ernie held up his hands defensively. "Don't ask me! I voted for putting the quidditch on."

"Susan?"

But Susan ignored the question. "Did you come all on your own?" she asked, looking back the way Victoria had come. "Didn't you just get a detention for that?"

Victoria shrugged. "It's a silly rule. You can't have someone with you all the time."

"You should be careful," Justin said seriously. "My parents almost didn't let me come back, after… you know. Said I'd be safer at Eton."

"Well, she's here now," Hannah said, and she patted a space on the blanket next to her. "Join us? We've brought a picnic."

Victoria looked at the rather inviting wicker basket. She could see freshly baked bread, jars of honey and strawberry jam, a thick wedge of crumbly white cheese, some perfectly ripe pears, and a bottle of strawberry fizz.

It took enormous willpower to turn down the invitation. "Sorry, I was actually just stopping by to borrow Susan." She sent Susan a meaningful look. "Remember? We were going to do our homework with Draco this afternoon."

Susan frowned in confusion, but a moment later realisation dawned on her face. "Oh! Yes! I, um, forgot."

Hannah grinned. "Ohh, homework with Draco? It's about time! Well, go on, don't wait on us. We'll see you back in the common room."

They departed with one last hungry look at the picnic hamper.

"I hope you have food," Susan muttered as Victoria led them back across the grass, heading in the direction of the quidditch pitch. "Hang on, where are we going?"

"The Pit," Victoria said. "Vince and Greg will have food, probably. Unless they've eaten it all... but anyway, forget about that. I've found out loads since yesterday—and you'll never guess what I saw in Lockhart's office last night."

"Um, a lifetime supply of hair potion?" Susan joked. "Or… Professor Lockhart and Professor Sinistra kissing!"

Victoria laughed. "You've seen too many of his plays. It was actually a copy of his new book—or part of it, at least."

"A new book!" Susan exclaimed. She glanced around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. "Did you get a look at it? What's it about?"

"That's the thing. It's about the Heir of Slytherin."

"But… no one's caught the Heir yet," Susan said. "He wouldn't be able to finish writing, would he? Though… I guess he'd want to go to press as soon as he catches the Heir."

"I don't know what to think, to be honest," Victoria said, trying to muster the courage to share her true opinion. Again and again she had shied away from confronting Susan about Lockhart, preferring to avoid the subject. She didn't like fighting, especially with her friends—it gave her a twisting feeling in her stomach, like she was standing on the edge of a cliff—but she had been bracing herself for this conversation since she had left Lockhart's office the night before.

She took a deep breath before pushing on. "I know you like him, but something isn't right about his books, Susan. That firearm, I'm telling you, there's no such thing in the Muggle world. Which means he must have made it himself, or had someone make it for him… either way, his story can't be true."

"But we saw it," Susan said, a slight whine in her voice. "We saw the firearm in his memories, the detective had it!"

"So a wizard must have given it to him," Victoria said. "Or else… maybe the detective was secretly a wizard? No, that can't be right." She paused, thinking. "I'm not saying I've got the answers. All I know is that something fishy's going on. And then there's his magic… you can't tell me you haven't noticed the way all his spells seem to go wrong."

Susan looked away. "We've never seen him in a fight, have we?" she said, her gaze fixed on the lake. "Maybe he's really good at defensive magic, but not so good with charms? There's lots of wizards like that—you know, people who are good at just one thing."

Every so often, Victoria was reminded that Susan still knew much more about the magical world than her. She wasn't truly convinced by Susan's suggestion—surely if Lockhart were a great wizard, then he could have pulled off a Summoning Charm—but there was no need to push the issue further. She'd said her piece, and now was the time to exit the argument with grace.

"You'd know that better than me," she said, and she took hold of Susan's hand, giving it a squeeze. "But still, something isn't right."

"You'll see," Susan said, looking back at her with a small smile. "I bet he's on the trail, gathering clues and whatnot. He might even know who the Heir is already! Just waiting for the right time to catch them red-handed."

"Well, I'm on the trail too," Victoria said. "Professor Flitwick, during my detention—he said the Chamber of Secrets has been opened before."

"Really? I've never heard of that." Susan frowned. "Why didn't Aunt Amelia tell us, I wonder? Surely she'd know, as the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement."

Victoria smirked.

"Don't say it!" Susan said, correctly interpreting the look on Victoria's face. "It's a bit strange, don't you think? Maybe Flitwick was wrong... if they knew who it was last time, you'd think they'd just arrest them again."

"None of it makes sense." Victoria patted her bag. "But that's why we've got this, isn't it? Maybe the foe glass will give us the clue we need."

They arrived at the Pit. It was an old amphitheatre of simple construction, open to the elements, with rings of stone ledges descending towards a circular platform which served as a stage. Long since abandoned in favour of the Quidditch Stadium, weeds grew between the slabs of stone, and more than one ledge had crumbed entirely. Still, the Pit remained a common meeting place for students on warm and sunny days, and it was here that Victoria and Susan found the second year Slytherins.

The girls were gathered around the stage area, with Pansy and Daphne striking poses while Arabella Rudgwick—once more recruited for menial labour—took photographs. A couple of rows higher, the boys were playing a game with their wands, hitting rocks against each other and seeing whose survived the longest. Victoria couldn't help but envy their skill with the Locomotion Charm.

Unusually, Tracey was hanging out with the boys, no doubt bored by Pansy and Daphne's impromptu fashion show. She was sitting opposite Draco, a short distance away from everyone else, their eyes locked together.

"Not her too," Victoria groaned. "What's so interesting about staring contests, anyway?"

"No idea," Susan said. "What's going on there?" She nodded towards the stage, where Pansy was trying to forbid Daphne from wearing pink.

Victoria snorted. "It's for Spring Witch—you know, you send photos of your favourite outfit to Witch Weekly, and the best ones get published."

They watched as Daphne emerged from behind a screen wearing a light pink dress robe.

"That's it!" Pansy cried, crossing her arms. "Arabella, you can't take any photos of her if she's wearing pink!"

Daphne tossed her hair over her shoulder, the golden blonde gleaming in the sun, and gave Arabella her best pout. "Ignore her. It's your camera, you can take photos of whoever you like."

Back at the top of the amphitheatre, Susan shook her head. "Trouble in paradise?"

"Maybe," Victoria said. "They've always squabbled a bit, but it's got worse recently. I think Pansy's jealous of all the attention Daphne's getting. I don't know if you heard—a third year actually asked her out last week."

"They didn't!" Susan said. "Who?"

"McLaggen—you know, the Gryffindor seeker."

"Cormac!" Susan gasped. "Did she say yes?"

"Nah," Victoria said. "I think she was too surprised to even think about it properly. She kinda just… laughed. You should've seen McLaggen's face."

"Poor guy. But no wonder Pansy was jealous," Susan said. "No one's ever asked her out, have they? Mind you, no one's asked me out either…" She looked with barely-concealed longing towards Draco, who was just declaring victory over Tracey.

"Come on." Victoria moved towards the boys, pulling Susan along behind her. "Let's grab Draco before he starts smashing rocks."

They made sure to give the flying rocks a wide berth as they approached, not wanting to get hit by flying shrapnel. "Draco!" Victoria called. "Homework time!"

"What?" Draco said. "I already finished my homework."

"Not this you didn't."

She opened her bag as she reached him, letting him look inside to see the foe glass and Pandora jammed between a mess of broken quills, loose sickles, a small pot of floo powder, and several vials of potions.

"Wow," Draco said, raising an eyebrow. "You carry far too much stuff around."

Victoria blushed. "Oh, shush. Are you coming or not?"

"Of course I'm coming," he said. "I don't see what the big secret is, though. It's not like we're breaking the rules."

"Tell that to Flitwick," Victoria said. "He wasn't too happy about that greenhouse!"

"How about we use the Witch's Grove?" Susan suggested. "That's not far from here."

Draco shrugged. "Fine by me."

They left the Pit and took the path towards the Quidditch Stadium, coming to a ring of witch hazel a few minutes later. The tall bushes were in bloom, their thin, antenna-like flowers creating a wall of rich, buttercup yellow. It was the perfect cover for some covert spellwork, and luckily the grove was empty.

"Here we go." Victoria withdrew the foe glass and set it on the ground at the centre of the grove. Its glossy surface had been polished to the point that it reflected her face back at her, framed by the deep blue of the sky above.

"So how do we get the boggart into the glass?" Susan asked, kneeling next to Victoria as she took the Pandora from her bag. "There's no chance of it escaping again, is there?"

Victoria grinned. "Well, if it does, we know exactly how to deal with it. I'm sure Draco won't mind."

Susan glowered at her, still upset over having accidentally covered Draco in dragon dung.

"Let's hope it doesn't come to that," Draco said stiffly. "Travers just said something about opening the reflection, didn't it? What does that even mean?"

"Luckily, I looked it up," Victoria said, and she drew her wand. "There was a reason Susan had to polish the surface so much—you can fit the boggart inside the space of the reflection. Alohomora!"

She tapped the glass and its surface turned dark, as if were a portal looking down into a deep well. "Next we have to hold the Pandora over the glass. Draco?"

He picked up the wooden box, making sure the lid was tightly shut before holding it in mid air.

Victoria shook her head. "The other way—the lid needs to be facing down."

Susan leaned forward. "Here, I'll help."

Together, the two of them manoeuvred the box so that it was upside down, their fingers brushing against each other as they held the lid closed.

"That's it," Victoria said. "Now, on the count of three, let the lid fall open. One… two… three!"

The lid dropped—a swirling, smoke-like cloud spilled from the box and fell towards the foe glass, the boggart sinking into the dark surface before it had even realised it was free. The moment it was all inside, Victoria jabbed her wand.

"Colloportus!"

The spell sealed the opening, returning the glass to its previous state—only now there was something inside, a writhing, churning fog of light and dark. As Victoria looked at it, the fog twisted and formed into the ghostly shape of a troll.

"It's working!" Victoria said, excitement filling her.

Draco shuffled closer to the glass to get a better look, and the troll broke apart, replaced by a fluttering cloak of darkness—a lethifold.

"It's just showing us the creature we fear," Draco said, frowning. "Shouldn't we see our enemies?"

Susan groaned. "Don't ask her to explain it again. I've heard it twice already and it still doesn't make any sense to me. She has to—what was it again?—imbue the divining medium with somniamatic properties."

"See, you do understand!" Victoria said. She turned to Draco. "In the real world, you only see what's actually there. But in dreams things aren't so fixed… there's no substance, only form, and the form is personal to you. So the Anamorphosis Charm puts an object into a dream state, even though it exists in the real world, and that way it can look like different things for different people. It's brilliant, isn't it?"

Draco cocked its head. "If we're turning the boggart into a dream, then who's the dreamer? You?"

"Oh, but that's the coolest part! It's actually a dream without—"

"Guys! Can we finish making it first?" Susan said, her voice pointed. "I wanna know who the Heir is."

Suddenly Victoria remembered that this wasn't just an academic project; there was a purpose to their magic.

"Okay. Just give me a moment—the spell's pretty tricky."

They fell into silence as Victoria prepared the Anamorphosis Charm. It was one of those spells that you couldn't just cast; you had to have the right mental state, like when she performed transfiguration by technique. She closed her eyes and let her breathing slow, as if she were falling asleep, lulling herself into a state of relaxation. As she breathed, she focused on the darkness before her, and soon enough lights began to form in her vision, strange shapes of different colours dancing in and out of the darkness. Her eyes began to ache, and that was when she knew the spell was ready.

"Disjunculus," she said softly, casting with a whisper, and the lights vanished from her vision, as if consumed by the spell. When that happened, you knew that the spell had worked.

She opened her eyes.

"Well?" she asked, looking between Draco and Susan. "What do you see?"

"There's a… face," Susan said, her eyes fixed to the glass. "I can't make out their features, though… it's blurry, like a smudged painting." She moved, as if trying to see from another angle, before sighing. "I think it's a girl, but that's it. I guess they're too far away."

"Maybe she's not at Hogwarts," Draco said, before looking into the glass himself. He frowned. "What on earth…?"

"You see someone?" Susan asked.

"Not someone. Some thing. A house-elf!" Draco looked very put out by this. "How can a house-elf be a wizard's foe? They serve us. But maybe… yes. What if one of father's rivals used an elf against us? They can go invisible, you know… the perfect spy, in a way. I'll need to write to father tonight."

"It works!" Victoria clapped happily. "Okay, my turn!"

She leaned forwards, excited to finally learn who the Heir of Slytherin was. The moment she looked into the glass, however, she knew that something had gone wrong. Disappointment flooded her, an almost physical blow.

"I think I did the spell wrong," she said with a sigh. Months of effort… wasted.

"What?" Susan said. "Why? What do you see?"

Victoria looked back at the glass. A pretty girl looked back at her—a girl with long black hair, green eyes, and clear, lightly tanned skin.

"Myself. All I see is myself."

Author's Note: Make sure to check out my AO3 profile for some new supplemental materials.