The sound of tapping on the dormitory window woke Buffy. Peeping out from between the curtains surrounding her four-poster bed, she looked over to the window, saw what was there and grimaced.

The noise had also woken Fiona Goyle and Uma Crabbe. Both girls had their heads stuck out from between their bed curtains. They looked at the window, looked over at Buffy, then back at the Grindylows hanging on the windowsill. The water demons pulled back their lips, revealing rows of sharp teeth.

Fiona Goyle jerked her head at the Grindylows. "Are they looking for you?"

"Um, maybe." Being known as a demon magnet wasn't going to enamour her to room mates. "If we ignore them, they might go away."

Buffy hoped that was true. She had enough to deal with having a boggart as a familiar, she didn't want a demon infestation to deal with as well. Last night, she'd pulled the bed curtains over her school trunk and cast a Silencing charm to ensure no one would hear her talking to Spikey. He'd been excited to see her and eventually had turned invisible and gone off exploring. She'd thought she was safe until she'd woken to find a blonde boy sat on her bed.

There had been a moment of panic. She'd simultaneously reached for her wand and the stake intent on using either or both until Spikey had revealed it was him by snapping into his boggart form. Not that it made her feel any better. Who feared a teenage Gellert Grindelwald? Had he been in Dumbledore's room? When she'd asked him, Spikey had done a series of happy somersaults all around her bed and then dived back into her schooltrunk.

So whilst Spikey was having fun at Hogwarts, Buffy wasn't. If hiding a boggart wasn't hard enough, she now had water demons hanging onto the window frame and tapping on the glass.

It seemed Fiona Goyle had also had enough of the Grindylows. She bounced from her bed, stamped across to the window, raised her wand and shouted, "Relashio!"

A purple light shot from her wand and hit the glass.

When the spell-light faded, they all saw the water demons were still holding onto the window frame.

"Shame it didn't work," Buffy said. "It was a good idea."

She slid out of bed and went to stand beside the other girl. Pressing her fingertips to the cool glass, she said, "I bet the glass has been charmed to withstand spells.

"Maybe if we all hit them wiv a spell at the same time?" Uma asked. "It might scare them off. I don't think I can sleep wiv them staring in."

"Sure, I'm in," Buffy replied. One of the water demons had his mouth on the glass, he was licking it whilst another made a rude gesture with its middle finger. "You two do the Repulsion jinx to try and dislodge them and I'll do a Knockback jinx."

The three girls stood with their wands at the ready.

"On the count of three," said Buffy. "One, two, three!"

"Relashio!" purple light flashed from Crabbe and Goyle's wands.

"Flipendo!" The windowpane lit with a blinding white flash from Buffy's yew wand.

"Merlin and Morgana, I think I've gone blind." Fiona Goyle pressed her eyes with the heels of her hands. "Someone, please tell me the water demons have gone. I don't want to have been blinded for no reason."

"They've gone. We did it. We've scared them off," Uma said proudly. She looked over at Fiona, still rubbing her eyes. "It was the reflection of Buffy's spell in the window that blinded you, Fi. I shut my eyes as soon as I saw she was using a yew wand. They always produce strong magic."

"She has a yew one?" Fiona stopped rubbing at her eyes and squinted - blindly – in the direction of Buffy's wand. "Tom Riddle's wand is yew with a phoenix feather core. I heard him talking to Malfoy about it back in our first year"

Buffy rolled her eyes. Yeah, and knowing Tom, he would think his wand was superior because it had a bird feather in it. "My core is thestral hair." Ollivander thought that was rarer than a phoenix feather.

"Thestrals are unlucky. They're symbols of death and dark magic," Uma said, giving her wand a wary look. "Phoenixes aren't."

"Threstal wands are neither unlucky nor dark," replied Buffy feeling insulted. She was a Slayer, it was her vocation to fight the dark side. Tom with his bird feather was more likely to be evil than she was. "Gerbold Ollivander made my wand. He said that I was the only one who could wield it."

Fiona, her eyes reddened from rubbing, gave Buffy's wand a dark look. "Tom's wand is a lot bigger than yours. His wand is well over 13 inches. Yours will look small next to it."

"Size doesn't matter." Buffy felt annoyed anyone would think Tom's would be better than hers just because it was longer.

It was the wrong thing to say. Both Fiona and Uma began to giggle.

"That's what the boys say," Uma pointed out with a chuckle. "When they have a small one."

"Never tell... a wizard... that his wand is too small," hiccuped Fiona, who was laughing so hard she was finding it difficult to breathe. She sat down abruptly onto Uma's bed. The bedsprings creaked and the bed bowed under the weight of the two girls.

Buffy sniggered. "Telling him there's too much flex to it, upsets them too."

The other girls fell about laughing.

Encouraged, Buffy went on, "I'm glad you told me about a wand being a penis metaphor."

Fiona let out a howl of laughter at the word 'penis'.

Buffy smirked and continued, "You know, in case I made a fool of myself by asking a boy if can check his wand out in class, Seriously, I could have done that and it would have been so embarrassing."

They snickered and when Uma's chuckles faded, she said, "We'd best tell you about dating in Hogwarts."

"Yeah?" Buffy wasn't sure she'd ever get a chance to date, not with her busy schedule. The only one happy about it was her Mom.

Uma went on, "If a boy invites you to the Astronomy Tower wiv him, he's either trying to seduce you or -."

"Seduce you," finished Fiona. "Same with the greenhouses, although you'd risk being caught by Professor Greenleaf or attacked by one of her mad plants."

"Also be careful of cupboards," added Uma.

"And empty classrooms," continued Fiona.

"Or tapestries that have alcoves behind them," Uma went on. "Some lead to different parts of the castle. Others don't get you anywhere, apart from snogged."

"In other words," Buffy said thoughtfully, "just be wary of any secluded spaces when you're with a cute boy."

The two girls nodded.

"And the not so cute ones," Uma made a face. "Not that they've tried it wiv me. They know I'll smack 'em if they get too forward. But you're small..."

Buffy scowled at the slur on her height.

"...and pretty, so they'll be tempted to try it on. That's why we're warning you."

There was a boy Buffy wanted to know about more than any other and now seemed the right time to ask, "What's the what with Dolohov?"

Uma and Fiona exchanged a look. Buffy recognised the 'shall-we-tell-her-or-not look'.

"Spill. I won't say anything to anyone." Buffy hoped the promise of secrecy would persuade them.

Uma Crabbe spoke first, not about Dolohov but about a family member. "Why did you stick up for my little brother when Rigel Black teased him about the Thestrals?"

Buffy shrugged. "The Thestrals were there. Plus I don't like to see kids being bullied. "

"You stuck up for me against the Parkinsons," Uma pointed out, "I'm not a little kid." She shuffled back over to her bed. When she sat down, the bed sagged. "You have a kind heart and you're brave. My brother said you jumped straight into the lake when Rigel fell in, even though he'd been nasty wiv you."

Fiona nodded. "Everyone thought you were a definite Gryffindor. We wondered if you being in Slytherin was a mistake."

"The hat doesn't make mistakes," Uma said firmly. "It put Buffy here for a reason and I think we can trust her." Her small eyes darted over to the door as they heard footsteps in the corridor.

Buffy had heard others passing earlier. They hadn't stopped, they'd used the bathroom across the hall and then headed back to their dorm.

"I can cast a Silencing charm on the door." Buffy didn't want others eavesdropping on their conversations either. "I'm totally an expert on them. I can cast one so that we can hear others, but they can't hear us." She didn't say she'd practised liked crazy so that she could hide conversations with Spikey.

Uma nodded. Once Buffy had cast one of her extra-strong Silencing charms, she returned to the girls and perched on Fiona's bed so that she was facing them.

"So spill about Dolohov."

Surprisingly it wasn't Uma who spoke but Fiona. "There was a girl in one of my classes, a Ravenclaw called Muriel McDonald. She was a Mud – er, Muggleborn, but she was clever and pretty and everyone noticed her." Fiona leaned forward, her hands plucking at the fabric of her quilt. "Dolohov began paying attention to her last year. He walked her to classes, met her in the library, and they visited Hogsmeade together. No one thought much about it."

"It raised a few eyebrows wiv her being a Muggleborn," Uma objected. She looked back over to Buffy. "The Dolohov's are from Europe. They're a powerful family with strong links to the Ministry of Magical Affairs in France."

"Rumour says the Dolohovs annoyed Grindelwald and that's why they came to Britain," Fiona added, she plucked at a stray thread that hung from the embroidered snake on the comforter. "They say Grindelwald won't make a direct attack on Britain because he's scared of meeting Professor Dumbledore."

"And Antonin Dolohov and this Ravenclaw girl, Muriel? What happened with them?" Buffy pressed. Grindelwald and the magical war seemed a long way off. She just needed to know about the creep Dolohov.

Fiona gave a little shrug. "One day they were all wrapped up in each other, the next Dolohov ignored her – walked right past her in the corridor."

"Oh," said Buffy, a bad feeling in her gut. 'Parker,' a voice inside her whispered.

Fiona went on, "Muriel followed him outside. She asked him why he was behaving like that when he was in love with her. Dolohov laughed. He said he'd been lying all the time and the only thing she was to him was a filthy Mudblood slut."

Buffy inwardly cringed. The memory of a conversation coming back to her... "Well, you know the difference between a freshman girl and a toilet seat… a toilet seat doesn't follow you around after you've finished using it—"

Fiona slid from the bed and padded over to the window. Outside, in the green water, a solitary fish swam past. There was no sign of water demons.

"Muriel was devastated," said Fiona, her eyes on the lake. "After that Uma and I watched Dolohov and listened to the gossip. Turns out Muriel wasn't the first or the last, she was just the one people noticed. He enjoys playing Muggleborns." She turned from the window and faced Buffy. "You aren't Muggleborn, but take our advice and avoid him."

Buffy shrugged the warning off. She'd no intention of going anywhere near the creepy seventh-former. "What happened to Muriel?"

"We never saw her after the Christmas holidays," Fiona replied, her face twisted with distaste. "It wasn't right what he did to her."

"Did she transfer?" Buffy asked. She didn't know the girl, but she knew the pain a callous boy like Dolohov could cause.

"She's dead," said Fiona flatly. "Suicide. The headmaster told us after the Christmas holiday."

"And no one questioned Dolohov or pulled him up about his behaviour?"

Both Fiona and Uma looked at Buffy as if she was crazy. "As if anyone would," Fiona snorted. "Dolohov's family is rich and influential and what would he be accused of? Upsetting someone's feelings? Kiss and tell? It wasn't as if he'd hit her with a killing spell."

No one spoke for a while, each girl alone with their thoughts.

Fiona broke the silence. "I'm not going back to bed. I won't sleep." She stomped over to her trunk, took out her clothes and wash bag and left the dormitory for the bathroom.