Panting, Faye, the headphones over her ears, paused her run at the outskirts of the lake. Her conversation with Mrs. Beaumont alleviated a fraction of her unease over her spontaneous magical outburst and while it yielded her first dreamless night in weeks, it did not satisfy her desire for answers. If it was a matter of uncontrolled magic, why had it not happened at Ilvermorny or at home? Was it the stress of being ripped from her old life, forced to acclimate to a different school and country where she blatantly stood out from her peers?
Used to being up at the crack of dawn, she crept out of the common room and went on a run to explore the grounds. Compared to the Ilvermorny, with its rough mountain terrain, the grounds were not as rocky, the lush green expanding for miles. She kept her distance from the forest, remembering Dumbledore's warning that it was off-limits to students. There had to be a semblance of truth to the Slytherins' fears of werewolves, an inkling of the variety of beasts housed in its depths.
As she stretched her legs, a brown baby chick tottered through the dewy grass. "Where are you going, pollito?" Six more chicks, covered in brown or yellow feathers, accompanied it, Faye scooping them before they fell into the water. "Let's get you back where you belong."
A chicken coop was situated next to a small wooden cabin. There was a dome-shaped, reinforced paddock and a vegetable patch, where Hagrid was tending to a dozen pumpkins with a pink umbrella. She had never seen pumpkins the size of boulders.
"Mornin', Faye. Yeh're up early." A ring of icy blue light emanated from his umbrella. "Ah, escaped, did they? Mus' be another hole in the fence."
"They were about to jump into the lake. The chicks at my grandparents' farms do it and we'll find them in random spots," she said, lowering the chicks over the fence to the larger chickens pecking at the ground for grains. "Is the paddock for the dragon egg?"
Hagrid stepped over the wooden fence. "Finished it yesterday when you lot were on the train. I'll add a couple o' enchantments when it's close to hatchin'. The babies can sometimes take ter flyin' the momen' they're out o' the egg. It's good of yeh ter care fer it. I had a dragon meself last year. Norbert." He dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief. "Blimey, I miss him. He's at the sanctuary yer professor's bringin' yours."
"Well, if I need tips, I will come to you as the resident dragon expert," she said, happily. "And if you need help with your chickens, I can be of service. I'm an animal whisperer."
Faye returned to her dormitory, just as the girls were stirring from their sleep. Wrapped in her quilt, Lena rolled out of bed and Susan blindly shut off her ringing alarm clock, her face squished against her pillow. Freshening herself up with her wand, Faye changed into her altered uniform, her tie yellow and black and her robes adorned with a yellow lining and an emblem of the Hufflepuff crest.
She ensured that the egg was not crushed by her books and other items. The potion that was intended to keep the scaly shell intact was almost empty. Making a mental note to discuss obtaining the requisite ingredients with Dumbledore, she followed the girls through the passageway and to the Great Hall. The elderly headmaster was waiting by the double doors with the squat, grey-haired professor.
Sprout was a kind, maternal woman, her love of plants evident by the dirt sprinkled on her clothes and patched hat. Faye understood why Dumbledore had a reputation as the greatest wizard in the modern era. His grandfatherly appearance belied the strength and power that emanated from him. After asking if she had any concerns about the curriculum and arranging to have the Head Girl, a seventh year Hufflepuff named Madeline Fawley, as a mentor, Dumbledore inquired about the egg.
Faye unzipped the tote. "Professor Collins says it'll hatch around Christmas. I have a book on dragon behavior that I've been reading so I'll be able to tell when it's close."
"On that day, we could have you skip a lesson or two," suggested Professor Sprout. "Hagrid's been forming the paddock and Professor Kettleburn will inspect it for additions we may require depending on the species and the weather."
"The potion I use to mimic its mother's fire is low. Professor Collins taught me how to make it but I don't have all of the ingredients in my kit," she told Dumbledore.
"Professor Snape has a private cupboard in his classroom," he replied, inclining his head towards Professor McGonagall. "He's aware of your unique situation though he may not trust you brewing the potion. You can inform him that you have my permission."
The Great Hall was not as lively as the previous night. Puffy-eyed and stifling yawns, people were eating at a snail's pace and drifting in and out to savor extra minutes of sleep. At the Gryffindor table, Harry and Ron ate their porridge while contending with a cold shoulder from Hermione, who kept a determined gaze on her copy of Voyages with Vampires. The friction surrounding the trio abated a smidge as Faye took a seat beside her cousin, the boys launching into a detailed account of their predicament at King's Cross. Hermione bristled ("Faye!") when she praised Ron for managing to drive the flying car to Hogwarts. His ears as red as his hair, Ron proceeded with the story, how they crashed into a tree on the grounds that smashed the car which fled into the forest and how they were apprehended by Snape, the potions professor threatening them with expulsion.
"Sospechoso," muttered Faye, slathering strawberry jam over the white pill embedded in a piece of toast.
A bemused Harry swallowed his porridge. "Bless you?"
"It means suspicious. Why would the barrier seal itself against you?" She bit her toast. "Was anyone around you acting shifty?"
"Hard to tell, with us panicking about missing the train. For all we know, it was Malfoy's dad messing with us to get revenge for Flourish and Blotts," Ron remarked. "He would've celebrated if we got expelled."
"Wouldn't he want to guarantee that you got expelled then?" she asked, dubious of Mr. Malfoy wasting his efforts on tormenting children. "Granted, his son's not working with a full deck so scheming might not be their forte."
A hundred owls streamed into the hall, delivering letters to their owners. Athena landed gracefully by Faye's bowl, a package in her satchel. It was a care package from the Beaumonts: a broom compass, color-changing scrunchies, photos of Reese, Charlotte, and her Ilvermorny friends, and Mrs. Beaumont's renowned chocolate chip brownies. Hermione chastised her for eating the brownies for breakfast, her disapproval deepening when Harry and Ron took a brownie themselves.
As Faye enticed her with the freshly made treat, something crashed into the milk jug, spraying milk and feathers onto the table. Athena clicked her beak at the unconscious, damp owl (the Weasley owl, called Errol according to Ron) and bowed towards Faye, to prove that she would never conduct herself in such a silly fashion. Hermione nodded when Faye asked if Erroll was alive, his elevated legs a bad sign.
Horrified, Ron tugged a red envelope, supposedly a howler, from the feeble owl's beak. A timid, round-faced Gryffindor boy urged him to open it, the envelope smoking at the corners. Seconds after Ron slit it open, a roar of sound exploded in the Great Hall, rattling the plates, goblets, and utensils. Mrs. Weasley's screams bounced off the walls as she reprimanded Ron for stealing the car and his actions leading to a Ministry inquiry against his father.
"Good thing my abuela's not a witch," said Faye, as the howler burst into flames. Ron was solely visible by his crimson forehead. "She'd send me those once a day. If it's any consolation, Ron, your mom got it out of her system. My grandmother lulls you into a false sense of security and then bam, she gets you. She'll bring up stuff you did years ago. Marco can't go to her house without being scolded about tracking in mud when he was eight."
Hermione closed her book. "Well, I don't know what you expected, Ron, but—"
"Don't tell me I deserved it," he snapped.
An argument was averted by McGonagall passing out their course schedules. After breakfast, they headed to the greenhouses for Herbology. The rest of the class, a combination of Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs, were outside the closest greenhouse, awaiting Professor Sprout.
"These have been around since the school was founded," Zacharias said to Faye. It was a rehashing of the welcome feast. "It was built by my—"
Faye cupped his face in her hands. "Zach, I'm gonna stop you there. Unless saying her name a bunch of times summons Helga Hufflepuff from the grave like she's Beetlejuice, I don't need to hear that you're her descendant every hour."
He looked to a grinning Justin, Sally-Anne, Stephen, and Kevin, the four Hufflepuffs having knowledge of the nomaj world. "Beetlewhat?"
"You don't hear me broadcasting that my mother was a distant cousin of Selena," she said, to bolster her point.
"Who's that?" he asked, utterly clueless.
"A goddess, a queen…" She squished his cheeks. "If you ever slander her, I will feed you to the giant squid."
"Who knew fear was the right tactic?" whispered Ernie.
An exasperated Professor Sprout strode across the lawn with bandages, accompanied by a jovial Lockhart. Hermione, Lena, and Susan, along with two Gryffindor girls, goggled at him like he radiated sunshine. His boasts of assisting Professor Sprout with the injured Whomping Willow, the tree Harry and Ron hit with the car, and downplaying his 'superior' skill in Herbology reminded Faye of Jaxon, when he would try to impress her.
Professor Sprout marshaled them into the greenhouse, fertilizer and a fragrant scent wafting through the doors, the Herbology professor scowling at Lockhart's request to speak with Harry alone. Pairs of colored earmuffs were lying on top of a trestle bench. Once Harry, thoroughly flummoxed, was inside, Professor Sprout began the lesson, positioned behind a row of deep trays containing tufty, purplish green plants.
"We'll be repotting mandrakes today," she said, donning her gloves. "Now, who can tell me the properties of the mandrake?"
Hermione's hand shot into the air. Unsurprisingly, with her passion for reading, her answer was word for word from a textbook, Professor Sprout awarding ten points to Gryffindor. When she asked about the dangers of the mandrake, Faye raised her hand, beating her studious cousin by a millisecond.
"Its cry is fatal to anyone who hears it," said Faye, earning Hufflepuff ten points.
Hannah gave her arm a gleeful squeeze. Instructed to get earmuffs, there was a scramble to obtain a pair that was not pink and fluffy. Faye's black earmuffs muffled all sound, Professor Sprout looking like she was doing a pantomime routine. Professor Sprout yanked a plant from the tray, revealing a muddy, wrinkly baby with mottled green skin, and demonstrated how to hush the bawling plant by plunging it into a pot of dark compost.
Divided into groups, Professor Sprout stressing the importance of wearing the earmuffs the seedlings' cries able to incapacitate them for hours, the class worked on repotting mandrakes. Faye and Hannah were at a tray with the Gryffindor girls who had been admiring Lockhart, Lavender Brown and Parvati Patil. As Faye got to know them, Lavender complimenting her accent, it was clear why Hermione preferred the company of Harry and Ron. Both girls were similar to Charlotte, bubbly and gossipy, opting for fashion magazines over books, which did not mesh well with the strait-laced Hermione.
Repotting the mandrakes was not a painless task, the seedlings flailing their fists and gnashing their teeth at the students. Faye cast a freezing charm on a mandrake to prevent it from biting Parvati's finger. By the end of the lesson, she bore a likeness to her grandfather after a grueling day on the farm.
The class washed their hands and te Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs separated for their lessons, the Gryffindors to Transfiguration and the Hufflepuffs to Charms. The Slytherins were lined up outside the classroom, the girl from the welcoming feast latched onto Draco.
"Who's the girl clinging to Malfoy like a spider monkey?" Faye asked Megan.
A passing Fred and George sniggered, Fred flashing her a thumbs up. "Pansy Parkinson. She's foul," she said, grimacing. "She and Malfoy are peas in a pod, the worst of the worst. It's sickening how much she fawns over him. He could be eating an apple and she'd say that he's a spectacular chewer."
"The Slytherins are a scummy lot. For your sanity, stay away from them," advised Lena, reapplying her lip gloss. "Blaise Zabini is handsome but he's about as agreeable as a rabid kneazle. Why give those cheekbones to such a toerag?"
Whatever the Slytherins were busting their guts over, the source being Draco, Blaise Zabini did not join in with his housemates. Faye recognized him from a photo on Professor Collins's desk. When he learned of her transfer to Hogwarts, her creatures professor had mentioned that his nephew was a student there. He shared his uncle's high cheekbones but was devoid of his friendly warmth. Charlotte spoke fondly of him herself, which Faye considered a Brendan and Warner scenario where they treated the purebloods better than the halfbloods and nomajs, the peppy brunette exchanging letters with him throughout the school year.
As they shuffled through the open door, Faye tapped him on the back. "Hey. I'm Faye, a friend of Charlotte's." His sneer lessened at her name. "She wanted me to deliver this. She would've sent it to you but Jaxon was being a butthead and tried to read the letter so she sent it with mine. She said if you don't respond in twenty four hours, she'll talk to Kellen Flynn instead and he really bulked up this summer. Muscles plus he's older? Your cheekbones won't be enough."
"I don't like her like that," he said, snatching the letter. "Who asked you, muggleborn?"
"Your uncle told me you were a delight," she said, walking past him. "I guess he was comparing you to the electric chair."
On her way to a table with Susan and Kevin, she caught Draco eyeing her shrewdly. Professor Flitwick, a half goblin, stood on a pile of books, taking a roll call. The Charms lesson was a revision of the spells they learned in their first year, Professor Flitwick explaining that they could not attempt grander spells without mastering the basics. He assembled them into groups, Faye paired with Ernie, Pansy, and Draco. If her snooty demeanor was any indication, Pansy did not need to meet Faye to form a nasty opinion of her.
"You survived your snack heist, Dane." Pansy's head snapped towards Draco, who glared at Faye, and Ernie grew anxious. "You're right. Addressing you by your first name isn't fair when you just call me Rivera. Last names from here on out, okay, Malloy?"
The corner of his nose twitched. "You think you're funny, Rivera?" spat Pansy.
"I've got a few jokes," she said, calmly. "I'm looking at two."
Ernie bit back a snort. Professor Flitwick created a display in the corners of the classroom, an obstacle course to practice the spells. The course involved casting a severing charm on a pile of branches to find a key and a levitation charm to get the key up to a wooden chest on a pillar, conjuring three flames to fit into spherical shaped holes in the chest, and then casting a knockback jinx on whatever was inside, extra points given to a student that could knock the object into a barrel behind the pillar.
"Why were you talking to Blaise?" Draco mumbled, as Pansy cast the levitation charm.
Ernie dodged a flame that whizzed by his ear. "It's none of your business. Do I have to run my daily convos by you?" she asked, extinguishing a tiny flame on the floor. "Jealous, Miller?"
"No," he said, a little too hastily.
"If you say so, cachorro," she said, shrugging.
"What does that mean?" he questioned, acting like a dog raising its hackles. "Answer me, Riv—"
He was interrupted by Professor Flitwick having him switch places with Pansy, who failed to open the chest. "Yeah, dazzle us with your skills. Dale," encouraged Faye.
"You shouldn't provoke him," Ernie cautioned her, amidst Pansy cheering on Draco. "He'll whine to Snape, who will take dozens of points and throw you in detention."
Megan was not exaggerating about Pansy's devotion to him. She was his personal cheerleader, the egotistical blonde reveling in her loud praises. With Professor Flitwick flittering between the other groups to correct a student's technique and heal their minor injuries, Faye weighed the risk of casting a silencing charm on her. The chest unlocked and Draco hit a floating cushion, missing the barrel by inches.
Pansy insinuated that Draco deserved points for his near miss. "It's for actually getting it in," Faye said to her, patting Ernie on the back for a confidence boost. "Were you listening to Flitwick or were you busy complimenting this genius's ability to hold his wand upright?"
"Better than you'll do, Rivera," he snarled. "You'll be lucky to break a branch."
"You don't need luck if you've got talent," she retorted. "I bet a galleon that I can get the cushion into the barrel in under a minute."
"Do you even have a galleon?" he asked, snidely.
Ernie managed to complete the task, the cushion swirling the barrel before it fell in, receiving ten points for Hufflepuff, and Faye high-fived him. "Puff pride. Ready to eat your words, buttercup?"
The obstacle course reset itself, Professor Flitwick lingering around for support. Faye cast her spells in rapid succession, her movements fluid. The effects were instantaneous: the branches breaking apart, the key rising to the wooden chest, and three spherical blue flames dropping it into the holes. She finished it off with a knockback jinx, the cushion landing in the barrel. Professor Flitwick commended her on her excellent form ("Quickest yet"), awarding her fifteen points and ushering Pansy forward for another round.
"You don't have to pay me. That expression of yours is worth it," she told a stunned Draco.
Throughout lunch, she had a front row seat to the Slytherins badmouthing her, Pansy and Draco leading the charge. She was enjoying their conspiracy theories, so identical to what she would hear from Brendan that they may have acquired them from him, when Fred and George sat on either side of her.
"Hello Faye," hailed Fred. "We were disappointed when you weren't sorted into Gryffindor but you shine in the Hufflepuff colors. A rose among the weeds."
Her friends were not charmed by his description. "We heard about your run-ins with Flint," said George, grabbing a piece of bacon. "We hope you washed away his troll germs after having to touch his mini wand…"
"Very mini," she affirmed.
The twins chuckled. "And we heard about your trip to the forest and that he was spooked off by a pack of werewolves."
"What is he talking about, Faye?" Justin asked her, confused. "Cedric said you didn't make it there because of Sprout. You didn't really meet Flint, did you?"
"I will neither confirm nor deny," she said, evasively.
"Hypothetically, if it is true, how did you trick him?" asked Fred, curiously. "We've been around the forest and the alleged wolves don't go near the edge, not even on a full moon, which means it was your doing. We thought you could help us with a prank on the Slytherins, if you're interested."
An older Hufflepuff boy, the captain of the quidditch team, was leaving the table. "I'll let you know. I'll meet you guys in Potions."
Faye raced after him, the boy walking in the direction of an enclosed courtyard. She had been planning to speak with him since Kevin pointed him out in the common room earlier in the morning.
"Hi," she said, quickening her pace to get ahead of him. "We haven't met. I'm Faye."
"The American, right?" he asked, stopping at the courtyard entrance. "Calvin."
"The quidditch captain, yeah. I wanted to put my name down for tryouts. The noticeboard said it's for two chasers and a keeper and I played chaser at Ilvermorny." Calvin crossed his arms, looking dubious. "It was only one match but I kicked ass."
"You're small," he commented, as if she was unaware of her size. "You're sure you wouldn't get blown off your broom in the wind? I'll level with you. Usually, I go for players with more of a…"
Resisting the urge to interrupt Calvin's hackneyed argument against her petite size, Faye focused on students scattered around the courtyard, on stone benches and steps or circled around the fountain. By an archway, Harry was eagerly shaking hands and taking pictures with the mousy-haired boy that had been in a boat with Faye, Ginny, and Warner's cousin but that was impossible: Harry was sitting with Ron and Hermione, inches from the archway. Whenever she had these hallucinations, the beings did not resemble people she knew, generally an amalgamation of a person from her imagination.
"Faye?" She turned towards Calvin. "You're not about to cry, are you? Madeline, my girlfriend…she tells me I can be too blunt. I wouldn't object to anyone trying out but I want to be realistic with you. If you think you've got what it takes, you're welcome to show up. It's Friday at five o'clock and you can borrow a broom from the shed by the pitch. Are you okay? You lo—"
"Signed photos? You're giving out signed photos, Potter?"
Draco's scathing voice rang across the courtyard. He sauntered out from the archway where she had seen the mousy-haired boy and the fake Harry, with two thuggish Slytherin boys who appeared to have hollow space between their ears.
"Malfoy's at it again," said Calvin, wearily, as Draco shouted to the crowd that Harry was handing out signed photos. "Maddie will kill me if I'm late. Spare yourself from this sideshow. Friday, five o'clock."
"Come on, Potter, hex him"
"He doesn't know when to quit"
"Finally. Today's been so boring."
Tuning out the indistinct voices, Faye spotted a marking on the wall where Calvin had been standing, an hourglass. She laid a piece of parchment, tracing the symbol with her quill. Pressing too hard with her quill caused the bottom half of the marking to glow silver and as she tried to undo it, she watched a ladybug on the wall scuttle backwards then continue to the window ledge.
Lockhart had somehow inserted himself into the Harry-Draco conflict, a mortified Harry glued to him like he had done in Flourish and Blotts. Choosing to let a professor handle it, Faye pocketed the drawing and headed to the dungeons for Potions. The dungeons were freezing, Faye having to bundle her hands in her sleeves. With lunch not over yet, she sat outside the classroom, putting on the headphones to drown out the voices. When she wore them, she seemed to instantly drift off into a daze.
Feeling a kick to her thigh, she doled out her own in response. Taking off her headphones, she saw Zacharias hopping on one leg and clutching the other, the Hufflepuff boys finding it humorous.
"Sorry, Zach," she said, apologetically. "I zoned out."
She tossed the headphones into her bag. "He thought you were asleep," said Susan, hiding her smile.
"In the future, don't do that." Zacharias elbowed a snickering Stephen in the ribs. "I could've broken a bone."
The door creaked open and they filed into the classroom. Its walls were lined with pickled animals in glass jars and in the corner was a stone basin, water dripping from a gargoyle's mouth. Faye draped her bag over her chair, sitting at a table with Hannah and Ernie. The Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws went quiet as Professor Snape entered the room, his cold voice coupling well with the gloomy setting. During his roll call, he said Faye's name with a contempt that she heard from a student but never a teacher. Ernie assured her that Professor Snape's hatred of students was universal, the Slytherins an exception.
Finishing the roll call with Lisa Turpin, a Ravenclaw, he surveyed the room in distaste. "Another year begins. As you know, the art of potion-making requires a subtlety and precision that many of you lack but we shall see if a summer away has enlightened you or made you more dunderheaded than you were when you left this castle." He swept over to Faye, moving like an oversized bat. "Why don't we start with a quiz for our newest student?"
"Yay me," she said, weakly.
"What are the three ingredients to a forgetfulness potion?" he asked, Faye unsure if he meant to sound so threatening.
"Mistletoe berries, valerian springs, and lethe river water," she answered.
The entire class was holding a collective breath. "What would I get if I added powdered asphodel petals to an infusion of wormwood and lavender?"
"A sleeping draught," she said, confidently.
"How long do the effects of a befuddlement draught last?" he asked, clearly wanting to stump her since befuddlement draughts were not taught until fourth year at Ilvermorny.
She was grateful for her extra lessons with Professor Lin, her former Potions professor. "It's a misleading question because it depends on the method." His sallow face remained impassive. "Jigger's would last for three hours but Belby's version adds doxy wings and that adjusts the time based on how thinly sliced the wings are so it can range from three to twelve hours."
Professor Snape strode towards his desk, waving his wand. Instructions for a wiggenweld potion, used in healing minor injuries, formed on the blackboard. As they grabbed ingredients from the cupboard, Hannah lamented that Professor rarely awarded points to non-Slytherin students but Faye felt that he was being much harsher with her. Hadn't he singled her out for his pop quiz and asked her questions beyond what she would have learned as a first year?
Having brewed a wiggenweld potion with Mrs. Beaumont before, Faye did not struggle with the instructions. Professor Snape, who was not as easygoing as Professor Lin, spent the lesson doling out savage criticisms to the students, reducing a Ravenclaw girl to tears for her uneven dittany roots. He made no comment, positive or negative, when he observed Faye's potion, a perfect shade of crimson, but reprimanded Hannah for not maintaining the fire under her cauldron at a suitable temperature. While he scolded Kevin, Faye showed Hannah and Ernie a simpler method to cut the wiggentree bark, by slicing it at a forty-five degree angle.
They bottled a sample of their potion in flasks and brought them to Professor Snape's desk for testing, the instructions on the blackboard changing to display their homework assignment. Faye wrote it in her planner and told her friends that she wanted to talk to Snape before going to dinner. Swearing to not anger him ("He has a nasty temper," whispered Hannah), Faye lingered at the table until it was just her and Professor Snape.
"Professor?" He was storing the corked vials in a cabinet. "The headmaster said to come to you for potion ingredients for my…situation. The potion that preserves the shell is running out and I can brew it myself. Professor Collins taught me. I don't have fire seeds or murtlap tentacles. Could I borrow them from your cupboard?"
"Students are not allowed in my private stores," he said, brusquely.
"But he said I have his permission because of the unique circumstances." Charging ahead of him, she barred the doorway. "If I don't make it, the shell could crack and then bye bye, dragon baby."
His dark eyes narrowed at her. "This is not Ilvermorny, Miss Rivera. You may have been Audra Beaumont's latest pet project, wrapping everyone around your finger, but here, you will not be treated differently from your peers so I will repeat myself. Students are not allowed in my private stores."
"I don't—did I—I'm lost," she said, caught off guard by his hostility. "Did I upset you? Was it the quiz? To be fair, you were setting me up to fail because befuddlement draughts aren't second year material. Professor Collins is trusting me with this egg. It's my responsibility. I'm not asking to be treated differently. All I'm asking for is the ingredients to care for it. If it takes being mute the rest of the year, deal."
"Take this as a life lesson, Rivera," he said, no shred of compassion. "You don't always get what you want. Step asi—"
"Sir, come on, I need the fire seeds and murtlap tentacles," she said, her hand grazing his in her haste to grab his sleeve. "Professor?"
Professor Snape stiffened, his face blank. He went into the office behind his desk and returned with the vials. As she placed the vials in her bag, his face reverted to one of cold indifference and he slammed the door. Had she dreamt the past hour and a half and everything after sitting outside the classroom was in her head?
"Rivera."
Draco walked towards her with those boys from the courtyard. He muttered to them ("Go on"), the boys marching down the corridor.
"What's their deal? Do you share a brain cell between the three of you?" she asked, adopting a casual tone.
"What were you doing with Snape?" he asked, suspiciously. "I saw him give you something."
"You got me, Murphy. I was asking him for ingredients to a love potion. It's why your friend Blaise could stomach a chat with me, the lowly nomaj." She pretended to tip a hat. "Congrats on solving the mystery."
"You're lying," he stated.
"Am I? Who can say? As riveting as this is, I'm hungry so adios." He moved in front of her. "Don't make me knock you over."
He scoffed. "You weigh less than a feather. You couldn't—"
She swiped his leg and pinned him to the floor. "Pinned you. If I do it again, I have to mark you. Those are the rules."
"Get off me," he hissed.
Draco started to push her but in their tussle, he ended up in the same position, on his back. Faye had her knee against his chest.
"Pinned you twice. You're not much of a fighter, cachorro." She drew her initials FR on his wrist. "Rules are rules. Now you'll remember this moment forever."
Tickling his nose with the feather of her quill, she got up from the floor and left the dungeons.