Needless to say, Violet's parents were not impressed with her in the slightest. It was the first time they'd been angry with her - as far as she could tell over a letter she received from them a couple of days later - and they appeared to be confused about that very prospect indeed. They couldn't even decide what they were angry about.

Violet,

We got the letter from Professor McGonagall. You shouldn't have been Duelling on school grounds! We thought you knew better than that. Yes, Dexter probably deserved it but you should have taken the high road there… and losing fifty points for Gryffindor? Unacceptable. Completely and totally unacceptable. Make sure you earn those back. You definitely deserve the punishment you got.

Really, we're shocked you even got into this much trouble. We never knew our daughter to be a troublemaker but here we are. Try and keep your head down as much as you can, Violet, we don't want to be getting any more owls from the school…

Out of curiosity, did you really cast the spell non-verbally? If that is true, well, we're definitely impressed. We're still angry, but very impressed you were able to do that. Dexter really made you mad, didn't he? We've mailed back McGonagall, and she'll be giving us updates about your behaviour because really… we wouldn't have expected this from our daughter.

Mum and dad

She passed the letter to Harry who read through it entirely befuddled. "They… they really don't know how to react, do they?"

"They're trying so hard to be angry with me but they're also congratulating me at the same time?" Violet responded when Harry handed the letter back to her. "They've never been angry with me before. I've never given them a reason to be."

"Maybe we're a bad influence on you," Ron laughed.

Before Violet could respond, Virgil kept continually pecking at her in a bid for attention. "Hey - hey, stop it… what's up?"

It was then she noticed there was another letter inside the envelope of the one her parents had sent. Her heart sank, and she knew exactly who it was from. Slowly, she pulled out the second letter, unfolded the paper, and began to read.

Violet,

Don't tell your parents that this is what I wrote, but I'm quite proud of you for standing up to Dexter after what happened last year. Get the house points back, and try to keep the non-verbal spells under wraps… the extra reading might have gone a bit too far this time.

Remus

"Lovely," she remarked, folding up Lupin's letter and resting it atop the one from her parents. "Meanwhile, Lupin is singing my praises - quietly, for that matter."

"Well, he saw firsthand how mental you could be…" Ron said.

She rolled her eyes. "Cheers, Ron, not like I have half the school calling me 'Mad Merryworth' or anything…"

It was true. The nickname had spread like wildfire, particularly among the Ravenclaws and Slytherins. There were a few brave Hufflepuffs who joined in too, but for the most part they usually kept quiet. A lot of students had opted for giving Violet a wide berth when passing her in the corridor, and at first it annoyed her, but then she realised all it did was pave a way for her to get to class on time or early. That was definitely going to have its uses for however long it kept up.

"At least we have our first lesson with Moody today," Violet decided to swiftly change the subject. "If he's anything like mum said he is, we're in for a treat."

Virgil began nibbling at Violet again, only more affectionately this time. She sighed, patted him on the head and fed him a bit of toast before he finally flew off.

"He's very impatient," she commented on her father's owl. "Dad spoils him far too much…"

"Like you don't spoil Astra?" Hermione said. "I've seen the treats you give her when she's flown to our dorm before…"

"Astra doesn't bite," Violet said as she packed the letters into her bag. "Shall we head to class with Moody?"

Even though the other three did agree to it, they couldn't help but notice how quickly Violet was changing topics that morning. There was something slightly more erratic about her that morning, and the three of them wondered if it was to do with the letters, or the fact she was about to walk straight into a lesson with someone who her mother knew (yet again, for the second year running). It was probably a mixture of both, as well as the students calling her a name.

Violet had unintentionally been walking a few steps in front of them, but the moment the whispers of "Mad Merryworth" started up in the corridors, Harry caught up a few paces and walked beside her. She smiled at him gratefully, and they carried on to Defence Against the Dark Arts in silence.

Class was intense, to the say the least.

Moody introduced himself to the fourth years and went on a heated tirade about why he was definitely the best option as their teacher and how they needed to be prepared for whatever dark forces were outside of Hogwarts. The most interesting - yet squeamish - part about him as a teacher, was the array of insects he kept jars and other glass containers on his desk.

This was definitely not going to be like Lupin's classes the previous year whatsoever. There was the feeling like they were all holding their breath whenever there was a lapse in Moody's ranting as they all stared at him, transfixed by his ramblings and by his magical eye too.

"Miss Merryworth!" he barked at Violet. "I can trust you won't be hexing anybody in my classroom unless I give you permission to do so?"

She chewed on her bottom lip for a second, frozen in shock at what he just said. A snigger from further across the room told her that Malfoy had enjoyed that.

"No - no sir. I won't hex anyone unless you say," she squeaked out.

"How's your mother?"

"Fine, sir," her voice was becoming strained now.

"Good. An excellent Auror - you'd do well to follow in her footsteps."

"Yes, sir." Really, really strained.

"Could you tell me how many Unforgivable Curses there are?" Moody then asked, turning back to the chalkboard and writing.

"Three, sir. Any use of them will send you to Azkaban."

"Correct!" He faced the front of the class again, his magical eye swivelling in various unnerving directions and finally landing on Ron. "Weasley - name one."

"Well - dad - he told me about one," Ron explained, struggling to get his words out. He'd probably been the most excited out of the four of them, but the nature of the class had gotten to him in some way. "The Imperius Curse?"

Moody was impressed. "Oh yeah, your dad would know all about that one… Gave the Ministry a bit of grief a few years ago. Perhaps this'll show you why…"

As he went over to one of his many jars of insects, Violet turned to Harry. "Is he seriously going to… going to show them?" she hissed at him, shooting a worried glance at Moody, hoping that he didn't hear her.

"I mean… looks like it…"

As they gave their teacher their full attention again, he had used the enlargement charm on a spider in his palm. With his wand pointed at it, he cast: "Imperio!"

Violet's eyebrows shot into her hairline. He was really going there. She wasn't enthused at all by that, nor when the spider ended up on the desk in front of her and Harry. It wasn't that Violet was scared of spiders - because she wasn't - but it was more to do with the fact it had been enlarged and was being cursed right in front of her that made her visibly uncomfortable. She couldn't help but feel for Ron when it hovered above him, and a small amount of glee when it was right on Malfoy's face.

All in all, to her it served as a pretty good example of the Imperius Curse. Not that they needed to actually be shown the example, in her mind.

When they moved onto the second Unforgivable Curse, there was something about the way Moody had Neville watch the spider be tortured by the Cruciatus Curse that really didn't sit right with her. The way he was wincing and twitching, trying to keep a horrified gaze on the spider sickened Violet to her stomach. Before she could even open her mouth to say something, Hermione had stepped up and was telling Moody to stop because it was bothering him.

The tension that Violet held in her shoulders during those few frightful moments eased, and she slouched back down into her seat thoroughly exhausted.

"Perhaps you'd like to tell us the last Unforgivable Curse, Miss Granger?" Moody asked, as he took the spider over to Hermione's desk. She shook her head with tears in her eyes. "Avada Kedavra!"

The spider was dead.

"The Killing Curse…" Moody growled. "Only one person has been known to survive it. And he's sitting in this room."

Violet's eyes narrowed ever so slightly when he saw how he was looking at Harry. It didn't seem right. This entire lesson didn't seem right. For the rest of it she kept her head down and took notes, like the good student that she was. If Moody asked her a question she would answer it swiftly. She didn't want him to find some sort of excuse to linger on her - not like he did at the start.

He ended the class by yelling out the words "constant vigilance!" as if that was meant to be their key takeaway from him.

The minute they were all out of the classroom, Violet shuddered. Meanwhile, Ron was in total awe as they headed down the staircase.

"He's brilliant, isn't he? Mad as a hatter but… he's really been there, you know?"

"Plenty of other Aurors have been there without bringing the Unforgivable Curses into a classroom!" Violet snapped. "That's not right. My mother could tell you that much, Ronald."

"Bloody hell, calm down…"

"She's right," Hermione said. "I mean, did you see Neville's face?"

Harry frantically tapped Hermione on the arm because she hadn't noticed that they were about to pass a rather forlorn looking Neville on the staircase. The four of them stopped to see if he was alright, which was when Moody popped up and took the boy away for a cup of tea.

They all glanced at each other, not sure if they should wait around, but elected to keep moving as they were blocking the staircase. They had a short break before heading to Transfiguration, where they began learning how to turn hedgehogs into pin cushions. It was a frightfully complex lesson for the boys in particular, who were grateful for lunchtime to come around.

Hermione ate rather speedily and disappeared off to the library leaving the other three to chat idly before they headed off to yet another double Divination lesson that afternoon. There, they went more in depth on planetary alignments and were told to carry on with their horoscopes for homework.

In the Common Room later that afternoon (still with no sign of Hermione, to which they assumed she was still in the library), Violet found it rather amusing how the boys were reacting to their current Divination lessons. Particularly because they were inventing horoscopes.

"I don't know why you two are making this up - this is just like Muggle astrology," Violet explained. When both Harry and Ron gave her blank looks, she carried on talking. "Star signs? Harry, I believe you're a Leo Sun."

"Oh!" It finally clicked in Harry's brain - at least, some of it did. "Wait, what do you mean by that?"

"Well… think about it. You were born under a Leo Sun. That's your main sort of personality. Meanwhile your Moon sign is to do with your emotions, and your Rising sign is how you present yourself. All the stuff we're doing right now with planets are to do with our… planetary houses."

Ron was still completely befuddled. "How do you know all that?!"

"I read about other kinds of magic. The kind that Muggles well and truly believe in," Violet said. "It's all a bit of fun."

"Or maybe it's an extension of Kate Bush…" Harry muttered, trying to avoid eye contact with Violet. There was a moment of deathly silence, which Ron broke.

"Who's Kate Bush?"

"We're not having this conversation again…" Violet ignored Ron and got straight to the point.

Harry held up his hands in surrender. "I'm just saying, most straight Muggles don't look that deeply into horoscopes!"

"And most straight Muggles also don't make googly eyes at Bill Weasley and his fang earring," she retorted. "I know I wasn't the only one who did, Harry!"

"You were doing what?" Ron was very much trying his best to keep up, but Violet waved him off and shuffled closer to Harry.

"Drop it," she hissed at him.

"Only if you do," he finally looked at her, as if trying to challenge her. Violet scowled and then relaxed back in her seat. There was a very awkward moment of silence that was only broken by the three friends' resuming of writing on parchment, until Violet spoke up with a change in topic again.

"I should probably reply to my parents' owl… but more to tell them about what we learned in class today with Moody…"

"Seeing if he's always been like that?" Harry asked.

"Something like that, yes… I know he can be a bit paranoid, and it's obvious there's a genuine concern there for us to be ready for whatever bad thing is out there, but… doing that for a first lesson with fourth years? That's something else," she answered.

Ron shrugged. "I thought it was brilliant. Maybe you're being paranoid."

"Careful. I'm being careful. Besides, haven't all our Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers so far had some sort of dark secret? Quirrell had Voldemort on the back of his head, Lockhart was a massive fraud, and Lupin's a werewolf."

There was no disagreeing with that, so Violet set to work penning out a letter to her mother (that also addressed the letter she had received from the woman that morning), and Hermione resurfaced from the library and checked their Divination homework before heading down to dinner.

After dinner, Violet went to the Owlery to send the letter to her mother and then headed to her detention with McGonagall, which followed the same structure as the past few days. She'd sit at one of the desks in the Transfiguration classroom with her teacher, and do any remaining homework in silence. If she finished her work, she was allowed to read through any class textbooks she might have on her. Violet got the impression that deep down, McGonagall didn't actually want to be doing this and was fully aware that she was still the same studious, quiet girl - only, she'd been pushed to the edge the other day.

If anything, Violet considered herself lucky that McGonagall hadn't taken away her Hogsmeade privileges for the term, as that was something she'd expected. That lack of very obvious punishment there was why she had the theory that the detentions were merely a facade. After all, Dexter had been the one to finally provoke her.

When she got back to the Common Room later that night, it was beginning to empty out as people started to head up to bed. Usually Violet would do the same, but this particular night Harry was still up, flicking through Confronting the Faceless, the book she had gotten him for Christmas the previous year. She went and sat next to him on the floor by the fire.

"I'm surprised you're not asleep yet," she said, pulling off her cloak and using it as a makeshift blanket over her crossed legs.

"Well, I was waiting for you," he said, closing the book. "You've had an interesting week, haven't you?"

She shrugged awkwardly, trying to wave it off. "I suppose so, yeah."

"Do you… wanna go to the room?"

"I'd love to, but… maybe when my detention sentence is over?" Violet suggested, a slightly pained look on her face.

She really wanted nothing more than alone time with her closest friend to just talk and let time run away from them the same way they would use that room to run away from the world and be safe. The projected stars above them making the room feel endless, making their souls feel infinite. That was how she thought of the room at this point in time, but she also knew that she had to be sensible for now. No night time wanderings.

Only a little dejected, Harry did agree. "Yeah, good point… another time?"

"Definitely. We've got the whole year ahead of us. We'll wait until the right moment."

He nodded, a small yet nervous smile on his face. "Yeah. Well. Night, Violet."

The way Harry hurried off up to bed threw Violet a little bit, but she thought nothing of it.