Fall From Grace
The months leading up to the Christmas holiday passed quickly at Hogwarts. Letti found herself engulfed and engrossed in schoolwork - while she was fascinated by every bit of wizarding and magical knowledge she could uncover, the amount of homework quickly piled up. Most nights now were spent sitting in the Slytherin common room with Cassie and Albus, poring over assignments.
In truth, most of the homework was not particularly difficult, or even lengthy. The reason for the late-night studies was not out of concern that they would fail: they were each certain they would be at least that successful. No, instead, the reason for their midnight sessions was this: the Fall Cup.
"What's the Fall Cup?" Letti had asked in early November, when she first heard the term.
"Only the second-biggest competition of the year!" Cassie exclaimed excitedly. "The House Cup is the big one, where Headmistress Patil tallies up the points each House has earned over the course of the whole school year. With the Fall Cup, she focuses on academics - the House with the best average scores in all their classes wins, and for the rest of the year, they're celebrated and the school is decorated in their honor."
"Ravenclaw is the House to beat," Lorcan said, beaming. "We've been victorious three years in a row now."
"Yeah, but you've lost the House Cup every year," Lysander pointed out. "Hufflepuff won last year, and Slytherin the two years before that."
Lorcan rolled his eyes. "Everyone knows the House Cup is just a popularity contest. The Fall Cup is clearly the most important."
While everyone doubted the importance of the Fall Cup, there was one thing Lorcan had right: Ravenclaw was the House to beat. Though in the months of November and December, Fall Cup spirit ran high, and every student worked diligently to help their House, Ravenclaw had already begun their preparations back in September.
"We've been running study sessions for months," Lorcan gloated one morning, after walking past the half-asleep Slytherin table. Letti found that she didn't like this side of her pale-haired friend and grumbled her displeasure.
The House Letti had not expected to take anything academic seriously, however, turned out to be very much in the competitive mood. Gryffindor students had radically changed their tune - while most had taken only a passive interest in their education at the start, now they were all hyper-aware and observant in class. Even Max Diggins, who Letti despised with a passion, was now taking serious interest in his coursework.
However, Max Diggins was not her true competitor. That title went to Lily Potter, whose animosity towards Letti had only grown since October. While Letti's battle with the Gargantula had earned her universal favor from just about everyone, including the Gryffindor students who had previously hated her like Max Diggins and James Potter, Lily seemed to despise her even more for it, actively shunning her and glaring at her any time she looked in her direction. Letti frowned - she wanted Lily to at least stop hating her, but that just seemed unlikely now.
Toward mid-December, near the end of the semester, the competitive spirits came to a head.
It started in Transfiguration. It always started in Transfiguration. Professor Patil's class was the only one that Letti couldn't keep pace with Lily in.
"For your final assignment," Professor Patil explained, "you are to turn your goblet into a plate. If you are successful, you are guaranteed passing marks for this class. If you are not…" she gazed about the room unhappily. "...you run the risk of failing."
Letti stared at the goblet in front of her intently, glowering at it. She had spent the past two nights studying the spell necessary to completely make this transformation occur. She knew she knew how to do it. She just had to make it happen herself.
Beside her, she heard the utterance of a spell and a swish of a wand. Lily Potter's goblet spun in a tight circle before flattening out into a perfect, shining dinner plate. Her shoulders fell as Professor Patil strode over, a beaming smile across her face.
Letti took a deep breath. "You can do this," she whispered.
She twirled her wand and rapped it against the goblet, uttering the words of the spell. She held her breath. The goblet spun in a tight circle, just like it was supposed to. Instead of flattening into a dinner plate, however, it took on a sort of melted look. It had certainly tried to flatten itself, but there was still an oblong bump in the middle that extended halfway up.
Her shoulders fell, and she heard Lily snicker quietly next to her. "Not quite up to snuff," Professor Patil said. "You still have the remainder of class to get it right." She wandered off, leaving Letti in her shame.
Letti tried again and again to get the spell to work. Each time, the metal form that used to be a proper goblet would spin in a neat loop, and it would steadily shrink itself lower and lower. But when the hour had passed, she still had a strange bulbous shape emerging from the middle of the plate. She sat back in her seat, ashamed, and looked over at Jesus, the only other Slytherin in the class. He hadn't fared much better.
By contrast, the Gryffindor students had all been extremely successful, though Lily Potter was the only one to succeed on her first try. After the teacher had finished tallying all the scores, they whooped and hollered in triumph. Letti hung her head low.
"It's okay," Lily said next to her.
Letti looked up, unused to pleasant remarks. "It is?"
"Yeah! At least when Gryffindor wins the Fall Cup, you'll know you were responsible for helping us." She laughed cruelly and high-fived another Gryffindor.
Letti looked away and clenched her fists. She was so mad for falling for the other girl's trick.
When class ended, things only got worse. One of the victors - Max Diggins, Letti surmised - had snuck wizarding firecrackers into their bags, and proceeded to start setting them off as soon as they got in the hallway, chanting "Gryffindor! Gryffindor!" as they proudly strutted.
Lily pulled one out and lit it with the tip of her wand, watching with eyes aglow as it spiraled up to the ceiling and exploded in a shower of light. Letti shrugged away from her and started walking in the opposite direction. She didn't want any part of this.
Max Diggins, however, had different ideas. He ran in front of her, waving a firecracker in her face. "Big D in the house! Why don't you light one, since you're helping us win!"
"Go away."
He was insistent. "C'mon, light a firecracker, it'll be fun! Don't be lame!"
She tried to walk around him.
Max shifted himself in front of her. "Don't be a sourpuss! What, are you just upset because you're a loser?" He waved the firecracker in front of her face again.
"LEAVE ME ALONE!"
Two things happened at once. First, the mark on her hand flared to life, shining so brightly that those immediately around her had to shield their faces to protect themselves from its light. Secondly, two spells rocketed out from her mark: an Air Gust charm, and a Fire spell.
The Air Gust charm hit Max first, blasting him far, far away down the hall. In fact, it hit him with such force so quickly that the Fire spell did not actually impact him in the slightest, a few stray embers gracing his arm but nothing more.
What the Fire spell did strike, however, was the firecracker.
Max, stunned, lying on the floor, didn't realize until too late that the firecracker was lit, the tail end sputtering towards the rocket. By the time he was sat up and vainly threw the rocket away, it was already going off.
An explosion of colorful light illuminated around him, immediately concealing him behind the blast. For a split second, the only sound that could be heard was the bangs of the firecracker, individual sparks flying against the stone.
Then the screams started.
Max Diggins was on fire, his robes alight. Several students rushed to his aid - an older one pulled out their wand, and a stream of water jet forth and doused the flames. Two other students started working to pick him up to take him to the hospital wing.
Professor Patil burst out of her classroom, took one look at the situation, and turned to the group of nearby students. "What happened?" she demanded.
Most of them said nothing, heads hung low. It was Lily Potter who broke the silence, raising an accusatory finger and pointing it in Letti's direction. "It was her. She sent Max flying and set him on fire."
Professor Patil looked Letti up and down, then said, "Follow me." She stormed past her, robes swirling about.
Letti hastily followed. She had no idea what was going on. She had barely registered what had happened to Max.
The professor took her to a part of the castle she had not yet fully explored yet. A large stone gargoyle perched in front of a wall, its eyes narrowed in a fierce glare. "Maheshwaran." The gargoyle grimly stepped aside, and the wall that was behind it parted into a gate, revealing a spiral staircase inside. As they stepped onto the staircase, the wall closed with a mighty thud behind them, and the staircase snaked its way up the narrow column. Letti was just starting to feel dizzy when it stopped before a giant oak door, with a brass griffin for a knocker. Her stomach sank as she realized where she was going. She was being taken before the Headmistress.
The door opened, and both stepped inside. Professor Patil directed Letti to a small leather chair. Once she was seated, the professor told her to wait, and left her.
Letti looked around the room. It was certainly the strangest teacher's office she had ever seen. It consisted of two circular rooms, with the room she was in - a kind of secretarial entrance room - sitting slightly lower than the other. In the room where she sat, bookcases lined the rounded walls, filled to the brim with tomes. Letti was immediately reminded of Professor Malfoy's office.
Portraits of old men adorned the walls, with one exception: a striking old woman whose gaze seemed to peer into Letti's soul. She shivered. Whoever the woman was, she was glad to not be in trouble with her.
In the second room, a large oak desk filled much of the space. It was covered with papers, books, and, curiously, a desktop computer. On either side of the desk were rounded staircases leading up to a space she could not see - she assumed that was the headmistress' room. In a sealed glass cupboard nestled in a nook in the wall, she could see several interesting artifacts. One of them was the Sorting Hat, which peered curiously back at her. There was also a shining silver sword, a glimmering ring, and two broken halves of a crooked wand. She wasn't sure what they were, but each of them must have been extremely important to be held behind glass in the headmistress' office.
The door opened, causing Letti to shudder with surprise. Headmistress Patil entered. She did not seem happy.
"Come." She beckoned Letti to step up towards the desk, while she herself stood behind it. "Tell me what happened."
Letti did her best to explain. Throughout the story, the headmistress refused to look at her, a hand on her chin while her eyes gazed absentmindedly downward at her desk. When the girl had finished, an eerie silence pervaded the space for an entire minute. Letti shifted weight between her feet awkwardly.
"Am I...expelled?"
The headmistress looked up at her grimly. "A classmate is in the hospital wing with grave injuries - had anyone stalled in bringing him to our nurses, there is a good chance he might have died. They are doing what they can, but there is a chance he will have some permanent scarring." She paused, sighing deeply. "However, it was clear that this was an accident - all of the students spoken to mentioned that your wand was still withdrawn, and none of them are aware of your powers. That said, I think it best-"
The door burst open, and a disheveled Professor Malfoy stepped through. "I apologize, Parvati, I just-"
"It's okay, Professor Malfoy. Come in." The headmistress looked a little perturbed at the interruption. "I was just getting the facts from Miss Lunetti here."
He raised an eyebrow. "And?"
"That mark of hers is proving to be as dangerous as we thought. It produced not just one but two spells simultaneously."
He looked down at Letti. "Is this true?"
She shrugged, staring down at her feet. "Yeah, I guess."
"Did you mean to do this?"
"No! I didn't want to hurt him. I just wanted him to get out of my face."
The headmistress gave the professor a knowing glance. "I thought I told you to help her get control of her powers at the start of term."
"We've been trying but progress is...stagnated." It was Professor Malfoy's turn to look disheartened. "I've had her come in nearly every day, but we cannot get her to intentionally replicate any spell on her own. By accident? Absolutely. But never on purpose. Perhaps if we-"
"Dammit, Draco, this was exactly what I was afraid of." The headmistress paced around the space behind her desk, hand on her forehead. "I've been telling you for weeks now that we need to go to him, but you just won't listen."
"What use is he going to do for us?" Professor Malfoy snapped. "All he cares about now is his reputation. If he gave a damn about what was actually going on, all the signs, then-" He stormed away, but only left into the lower room. He rubbed his chin aggressively, exasperated.
"Who?" Letti dared to ask. "Is there someone who can help me?"
The adults looked at each other - they seemed to have forgotten that Letti was even there.
"There is someone who might be able to help, yes," Patil said.
"Emphasis on might," said the professor sourly.
She gave him a glaring glance and moved on. "During the Calamity, there was only one other person who understood the entities and magics that were being unleashed. Arguably he was the strongest fighter we had against the Calamity." She paused for a brief second before saying his name. "Harry Potter."
Professor Malfoy turned away in disgust.
"While he has certainly changed since the Calamity ended, there is a good chance he has some knowledge that could be of use to us. After all, he more than either of us would understand what it's like to have a mark you don't entirely understand."
Malfoy scoffed. "His scar and her mark are two entirely different-"
"Yes, but he might still be of us." The headmistress seemed disappointed in the professor's attitude. "I'm no fan of his, either, but we cannot let old feuds divide us. That's what caused the Calamity to be such a mess in the first place, remember? And now, with what's going on-"
"What do you mean?" Letti looked from one adult to the other. "What's going on?"
"It's nothing." The headmistress bit her lip. "I misspoke."
"NO!" Letti stomped her foot in frustration. The mark on her hand flared to life, and the lights in the room began to fade as if being covered by an unseen force. "I'm tired of everyone keeping things from me! I want to know what's going on!"
She took a deep breath, and the shadows faded away. The adults looked at each other awkwardly. "Look," Letti continued, "I know that I'm only twelve. But...it feels like everyone is keeping secrets from me about me. Who my mother is, what happened during the Calamity, what my mark means...don't I deserve to know?"
The headmistress looked at the professor. "She's right, you know."
Professor Malfoy nodded. "I recall how much Dumbledore's secrets cost us when we were in school. It's funny, how we seem doomed to repeat history's mistakes."
"And yet now we're presented with the opportunity to correct them." Headmistress Patil turned to Letti. "You're right. We've been keeping too much from you, and you deserve to know some truths."
"It's time to tell you who your mother really is."