Sunday 8 March, 1992:

When Rolf first became friends with Lena Lestrange, he fell a little bit in love with her.

Of course, that didn't mean he found her any less scary. Even at not-quite-fourteen, Lena was an intimidating figure, in both her appearance and her personality. She had been taller than Rolf back then, and had a way of looking at people as if they were much smaller than they actually were.

Even now, just after turning sixteen, Rolf could still feel intimidated by Lena. It wasn't ever her intention, he understood, to make him and Maggie feel inferior to her, but it was unavoidable. After all, she was brilliant.

Now, as they sat outside in their usual spot on the edge of the Forbidden Forest, Rolf nervously watched Lena read his Charms essay draft, and scribble her corrections and comments on it. Lena reviewing his and Maggie's work was still a fairly new development in their friendship, and it always put Rolf on edge, as he desperately hoped that Lena wouldn't think he was an idiot. Maggie sat nearby them, practising Vanishing mice. He could see that she too was eager for Lena's approval, glancing every now and again at their friend with an anxious expression. But Lena's focus was on Rolf's homework.

Her brow was furrowed, and when she wasn't using it to write, she absentmindedly twirled her quill in her fingers. Rolf noted it was the same motion she usually used with her hair when she was deep in thought. That was one of the many things Rolf had observed about Lena over the last couple of years.

The first time Rolf had properly met Lena had been early in their Third Year – although it wasn't Lena who he had first spoken to, but Mortimer. Rolf had been looking for a book in the library when, to his surprise, he had found the Bowtruckle behind one of the books he'd pulled out from a shelf.

Being the grandson of Newt Scamander, Rolf had come across many Bowtruckles before then, but it was still an unusual sight to see one in the Hogwarts library. Mortimer also clearly hadn't been expecting anyone to see him, and had frozen in shock. But, being the aspiring magizoologist he was, Rolf's surprise had given way to delight.

"Hello there," whispered Rolf. "How'd you get in here?"

The small green creature, which had backed itself up against the back of the shelf, stared back at him. It seemed afraid.

Rolf spoke to it in the calm, reassuring voice his grandfather used to speak to creatures. "Don't worry, little guy, I'm not going to hurt you." He slowly stretched out his hand to the Bowtruckle, who, after a moment, hesitantly moved towards it.

"You must be pretty lost to be in here," continued Rolf softly. "But I can take you back outside."

"You don't need to do that," said a voice to Rolf's left.

Startled, Rolf quickly turned his head to the side and saw the girl he knew to be Lena Lestrange standing a few feet away from him. For a brief moment, he marvelled at how stealthily she had appeared. Then fear washed over him.

Not long after he had begun First Year, a Sixth Year Slytherin girl had been removed from the school after being cursed or poisoned. Within a day, a rumour had made its way all around Hogwarts that her attacker had been Lestrange. It couldn't have been an unfounded rumour, because everybody knew the teachers had questioned her over it. But she was never found guilty. And the Sixth Year never returned.

Since then, she had been suspected, among other things, of putting two Fourth Year Gryffindor boys in the Hospital wing for a week with a case of non-stop vomiting, changing a Seventh Year Ravenclaw girl's nose into a pig snout, removing all the hair off one of the boys with whom Rolf shared a dormitory, and locking a group of Third Year Ravenclaw girls in a broom closet for an entire day. And she had escaped punishment for all of them.

And then there was the matter of who her parents were...

But right now, it was Lestrange's eyes that were scaring Rolf the most. They were icy, to the point that he almost shivered under her gaze.

Rolf gulped. "I... I j-just..." he began to stammer, but Lestrange cut him off.

"Well, just don't," she said in a quiet, cold voice. Suddenly, her hand shot forward, and Rolf stumbled back in fright, thinking she was about to curse him. Then he realised her wand wasn't in her hand – she was simply holding it out for the Bowtruckle, who clambered onto it. Lestrange eyed Rolf strangely, and her mouth twitched. It took a few seconds for Rolf to realise she was amused. His face flushed red in embarrassment.

Lestrange slipped the Bowtruckle into her robe pocket, and began to walk away. But a question had entered Rolf's mind, and before he could stop himself, he heard himself calling out to Lestrange.

"You have a pet Bowtruckle?"

Lestrange stopped, and slowly turned back around to face him. She raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

Rolf swallowed hard, internally cursing himself. He had just escaped a confrontation with Lestrange, why in Merlin's name had he opened his big mouth and drawn attention back to himself?

"He's…" began Rolf, his voice slightly shaking, "he's not... not from the Forest, is he? He's yours."

Before Rolf could properly register what had happened, Lestrange was suddenly right in front of him, wand in her hand. "And why," she whispered, her face mere inches away from his, "would that be any concern of yours?"

Trembling, Rolf shrunk back against the shelf. He didn't want to say anything else, but Lestrange was clearly waiting for an answer.

"I, I d-didn't th-think students were al-llowed to keep B-bowtruckles as p-pets," he stuttered.

Lestrange slammed her hand that wasn't carrying her wand against the shelf right next to where Rolf's head was, and moved even closer to him, effectively pinning him to the spot.

"What are you going to do?" Her voice was a gentle murmur, but her icy eyes carried a threat in them that made Rolf feel acutely aware of the danger he was in. "Tell a teacher? Try and get me into trouble?"

Vigorously, Rolf shook his head, too terrified to reply out loud.

"No?" continued Lestrange in the same soft, dangerous voice. "You won't?"

Again, Rolf shook his head. "N-no, I promise!" he choked out.

Lestrange stared at him for a moment longer, before a small, twisted smile graced her face. "Well, if you're so sure you won't tell anyone–"

This time, Rolf nodded emphatically.

"–Then I suppose it won't matter if I modify your memory. Just to be sure."

Panic rolled over Rolf. "What?!" he yelped. "You can't–"

He halted his protestation as he felt Lestrange's wand resting against his temple.

She leaned down, bringing her face even closer, and for a wild moment Rolf thought she was going to kiss him. But then she moved her mouth around to the side of his face, so it was less than an inch away from his ear.

"Can't what?" breathed Lestrange, and Rolf shivered.

"Please," he begged, close to tears, "please don't. I would never tell, I, I... I like Bowtruckles," he babbled desperately. "I would keep one as a pet if I could, my grandfather used to keep a heap of them, and I think the rules about what we can keep as pets at Hogwarts are dumb anyway, I'd love to have some creatures other than owls and cats and toads around, and I think it's really cool that your pet is a Bowtruckle–"

"He's not a pet."

Rolf's rambling came to an abrupt end. Lestrange had leant back, and was watching him with a curious expression.

"Your last name is Scamander, isn't it?" she said unexpectedly.

Rolf was taken aback at the swift change of topic.

"Erm... yes?" he replied, hesitant.

Lestrange nodded, still surveying him with unusual interest. "I remember from the Sorting," she explained distractedly. "You're related to Newt Scamander, I take it?" Her tone had become oddly pleasant.

Wary of this sudden change of disposition, Rolf answered cautiously, "He's my grandfather." He paused, before adding, "Why do you ask?"

Lestrange cocked her head, as if confused that he needed to ask. "Because he's brilliant. I mean, his work in the field of magical creatures is... well, it's unparalleled."

"Erm..." Rolf struggled to find an appropriate response. "Er, yes. He, he is pretty... brilliant."

"Are you close?"

Beginning to feel more flustered than frightened now, Rolf nodded. "Yeah. Yes, we see a lot of each other."

"And you like Bowtruckles?"

Slightly thrown by the next change of the conversation's direction, Rolf nevertheless nodded again. "Yeah, I do," he said. "They're pretty cool." Feeling slightly more confident that Lestrange wasn't about to horribly curse him, he asked, "How did you come to own– I mean," he hurriedly interrupted himself, "how did you meet this little guy?" He gestured to her robe pocket, out of which the Bowtruckle was curiously watching him.

Lestrange eyed Rolf with a thoughtful expression for a moment, before slowly reaching into her pocket and taking the little creature out. She held her hand out in front of her, the Bowtruckle sitting down in the centre of her palm.

"His name's Mortimer," she said quietly, looking down at the small, green being. "I found him in a stall in Knockturn Alley last summer, trapped in a glass tank. He looked so..." She broke off.

As she had been speaking, Rolf had noticed that Lestrange's eyes, so icy and menacing just a minute ago, had softened. Now, Rolf could see something that seemed very much like kindness, or perhaps compassion, in them.

Evidently, Lestrange was also concerned that she had just allowed herself to display too much sentimentality, and some of that prior hardness returned to her expression.

She cleared her throat. "Well, I wasn't going to leave him in there."

"So you nicked him?"

"I liberated him," she corrected Rolf with an indignant sniff. "And he chose to stay with me, rather than venturing out on his own." She put the Bowtruckle, Mortimer, back inside her pocket.

Rolf nodded slowly, thoughtful. It was as though all his previous fear of Lestrange had ebbed away while she told her story. "So he's, like, more of a... companion, then."

There was an imperceptible turning-up of the corners of Lestrange's mouth. "A companion," she agreed. "Yes, that's a good way of putting it."

So a tentative friendship had begun, although Lena had never used that term – except maybe once or twice ironically – until recently.

When, after that first meeting, Lena kept finding Rolf around Hogwarts and talking to him, intimidated as he had been by her, he had been under no illusions: she was paying attention to him because of who his grandfather was. But Rolf hadn't minded, because he'd always had a fascination with rare, mysterious, and dangerous creatures – and that had been a very apt description of Lena. And Rolf was perceptive enough to notice that while it may have been his connection to Newt that first interested her, Lena had quickly grown to like who he was as his own person, and that was why almost two-and-a-half years later he was one of her two closest friends.

But as Lena had begun to start genuinely liking Rolf, he, in turn, had started to notice that she was quite pretty – albeit in a corpse-like sort of way. And she could be quite funny, in a dry, dark sort of way. And she was brilliant at magic, in – well, in practically every way. More than that, she was kind and respectful to creatures that many other wizards and witches were either cruel to or simply not interested in, and she was loyal to and protective of those few people she did care about, to an alarming degree – although she would never admit it aloud. So, Rolf couldn't help but fall a little in love with the girl of whom he had once been so terrified.

On a couple of occasions, he had almost worked up the nerve to tell her how he felt, but he could never bring himself to go through with it. At first it was because Rolf was too scared of Lena rejecting him – not just as a potential boyfriend, but cutting ties with him altogether. Or he was worried that she would curse him just for having the impertinence to presume that she might ever like him in a more-than-platonic way, and that he could ever consider himself on the same level as her.

And then about a year ago, he had realised that he was no longer scared of her saying no – he was scared that she might ever say yes. Because try as he might, Rolf couldn't actually imagine being in a relationship with Lena.

By that time, he had known Lena well enough to discern that she would see having a boyfriend as a vulnerability. And Lena hated being vulnerable. Rolf was certain that the only way Lena would ever have a romantic relationship with someone was if she was completely and utterly in love with that person – and knew for certain they felt the same way about her.

Rolf knew he wasn't that guy. So he had accepted it, and moved on. And now, something even better had happened than Lena saying she fancied him too: she had, out loud and without a trace of irony, called him her friend.

Now, as he watched Lena writing her final comment on his draft, he smiled as he thought about what a good – and useful – friend she was to have.

Thursday 12 March, 1992:

Lena,

I was very glad to receive your letter; I do wish you wrote more often. Surely schoolwork, for someone as advanced as you, doesn't keep you so busy that you don't have time to keep up a regular correspondence with those of us who have been deprived of your company and insight for the majority of these past five years?

I would inquire further into this renewed interest in the Mirror of Erised, but I suspect if there was anything else you wanted to tell me, you would have included it in your letter. Keep your secrets, dear – I would expect nothing less from the girl raised by Valeriya Dolohov.

Now, I'll do my best to try to answer your question – or hypothetical proposition, that might be a better way to put it – but you must remember, I have never personally studied the Mirror. I must draw all my conclusions from written accounts of others who have had the privilege.

The idea you put forward to me was very interesting, and I can honestly say one I had never considered myself. But looking back over my research into the Mirror, I think I can say to you that it's a THEORETICAL possibility.

Mirrors (as I'm sure you know, but will reiterate just so I'm as clear as I can be) are objects that are highly malleable for magical modification. Of course, anything that can provide a reflection is, but as that is a mirror's sole purpose, they have the most potential.

Instead of thinking of a reflection as being an image, try imagining it's an alternate reality. It exists at the same time as our world, but everything is just that little bit different. And it is precisely this relationship between reality and its reflection that creates – with the right, precise magic – the ability to traverse between the two. Naturally, it is a lot more difficult and dangerous for something that is alive to enter the reflected world; indeed, it has rarely ever been accomplished (I believe only three people in recorded history have ever succeeded crossing into the reflected world and returning). There is, however, a greater success rate in moving objects into reflections (and eventually getting them back out).

But now to deal in your specifics – could someone potentially hide a magical object in the Mirror of Erised, and only allow it to be removed by a specific desire? Well, this is entering the territory of incredibly complex magical theory here – territory, that to be completely honest with you, Lena, in which I am not really an expert (I don't even know if there is anyone who can claim to be an expert in this field). Essentially, we're dealing with unchartered waters here. But here's what I can tell you: the Mirror contains a reflected world. Yes, it's one that has been significantly modified by magic, but it exists nonetheless. So let us cross that inter-dimensional bridge and say an object can be hidden in there. Now, let us address the second part of your proposal. The purpose of the Mirror is to show a person's deepest desire, not to give them it. HOWEVER – it is, as you know, easier to manipulate existing magic than to create it from nothing. So if the triggering desire was specific to the object, and not about using the object but instead retrieving it, or perhaps preventing it from being used, the Mirror might find the differentiation between showing and giving a little more difficult. And of course, this hypothetical magical object is something that is actually real, not a magical projection, which I imagine is an important distinction.

Does that make sense? If anything doesn't, please write back for elaboration and I will do my best to give it to you (actually, just write back anyway: I've been researching some other things that might interest you, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on them).

Remember, as I have emphasised before in this letter, this is all purely THEORETICAL. These are not facts, simply guesses based upon the more concrete research and evidence of others.

I hope to hear from you again soon, especially if you have another query as interesting as this one – I admit I actually quite enjoyed myself, trying to formulate a conclusion for it.

Best Wishes,

Hedda Nygård

P.S. I understand that Fifth Years at Hogwarts sit some very important exams at the end of their school year. I would be extremely surprised if you needed it, but I'd like to wish you the best of luck for them anyway!

Lena finished reading the letter, a weight lifting from her shoulders. 'It's safe, then,' she thought to herself, relieved. 'Quirrell won't be able to get the Stone.'

She was sitting in the corridor outside the History of Magic classroom. There was still almost half-an-hour before class – most students were still eating breakfast in the Great Hall. Lena had just been finishing hers when an owl had arrived, delivering her the letter she had been waiting to receive for about two weeks.

After Lena had found the Mirror of Erised was no longer in the unused classroom on the first-floor, she became fixated on discovering what had happened to it. For almost a week she had searched the Hogwarts Castle, but had no luck in locating the Mirror. Finally, it occurred to her that maybe the Mirror's original unexpected appearance and its subsequent vanishing might have had something to do with the other important magical object currently at Hogwarts – the Philosopher's Stone. It took Lena another week to come up with a logical reason for the connection.

Over the years, she had come across several references to powerful wizards and witches hiding – or in some cases, trapping – objects in mirrors. However, it was such an under-researched area of magic that when Lena came up with her theory of the Mirror being used as a final safeguard against anyone intending to steal and use the Stone, she had written to Hedda Nygård (the Norwegian witch who had first told Lena about the Mirror of Erised) in the hope of confirmation. And the combination of Hedda's belief that it was possible, and the fact that Dumbledore was an exceptionally brilliant and innovative wizard, was pretty much all Lena needed to believe that she was right.

Closing her eyes, Lena sighed and leaned her head back to rest it against the wall. She had been constantly telling herself this past month that she didn't want Quirrell to retrieve the Stone for Voldemort. But somewhere at the back of her mind, and deep down in her heart, she couldn't stop wondering what it would be like to have a fully restored Lord Voldemort back. And not just back in the Wizarding world, but back in her life.

'Would he still look the same?' wondered Lena. 'Be the same?' But those were not the questions that plagued her the most. There was one thing above all she wanted to know.

Would Voldemort still feel the same way about Lena that he had all those years ago?

Her memories of him were as clear as though they had only happened yesterday. She could see him brushing her hair back off her face, feel him breaking through the weak barrier around her mind, and hear him telling her that he would be proud to be her father. She twisted her hands in her lap, remembering how on that last day he had held them in his. And she had so desperately waited for him to come back...

Then she remembered hearing other wizards and witches talking about all the innocent people he had murdered, and the atrocities the Death Eaters had committed in his name. And she thought about how the man she had cared more about than anyone had caused so much pain and suffering, and for a second she thought she was going to throw up.

Lena took a few deep breaths, and the sudden wave of nausea passed. She opened her eyes and folded the letter, putting it in the pocket of her robe.

'Well, you don't have to think about him returning now,' she told herself. 'Because unless someone does something incredibly stupid, there's no way Quirrell is getting the Stone out of that mirror.'

Friday 5 June, 1992:

"Potter did what?!"

Lena stared disbelievingly at a house-elf named Tizzy. She was sitting in the kitchens, having just concluded her Ancient Runes OWL. However, the cup of tea and plate of muffins that the elves had prepared for her lay practically untouched.

Tizzy nodded her head vigorously. "Harry Potter stopped the bad Professor Quirrell from stealing the Philosopher's Stone!" the elf whispered, clearly awed. "And now, the bad Professor is dead!"

Lena's head spun. Unable to formulate a coherent sentence, she instead opted to take a sip of tea. She did so, and immediately grimaced. It had gone cold.

Another elf, upon seeing Lena's reaction to the tea, whisked it away before Lena could say anything, and quickly prepared another.

"So," began Lena slowly, as the new mug was brought over, "you definitely heard this all from McGonagall? You're not exaggerating any of this?"

Tizzy looked hurt. "Tizzy swears this is all true, Miss Lena!" she cried. "Tizzy would never lie to Miss Lena!"

"I know," said Lena hastily, reaching over to reassuringly pat Tizzy's hand. "I know you wouldn't lie, Tizzy. It's just all–" she took a deep breath, "–a lot to take in." She took a small sip of the piping hot tea.

Mollified, Tizzy nodded, her big blue eyes wide. "Harry Potter must truly be a great wizard," she said.

Lena elected to take a bite of one of the muffins instead of replying, and tried to get her head around everything Tizzy had told her that afternoon.

She hadn't noticed anything unusual that morning, too caught up in helping Maggie with last-minute preparations for their exam. After finishing the OWL exam, Maggie had gone back to their dorm for a nap (having woken up that morning far earlier than was to her liking), whilst Lena had gone to the kitchens for a snack, to find it in a buzz of excitement. After inquiring why this was so, there had been a brief argument between the house-elves over who got to share the exciting story with 'Miss Lena'. In the end, Tizzy had won, as she had been the one to overhear McGonagall talking to Professor Sprout in the staffroom.

Apparently, the previous night had seen Quirrell go through the trapdoor and get past the teachers' obstacles – with the exception of the Mirror – in order to steal the Stone. But Potter and his two friends (young Weasley and the bushy-haired girl, who was named, Lena had just learnt, Hermione Granger) had somehow known about Quirrell's intentions, and had followed him down, also getting past the obstacles. Eventually, Quirrell and Potter had come to face, Potter had somehow gotten the Stone out of the Mirror of Erised, and the resulting fight (or whatever it was – according to Tizzy, McGonagall hadn't been particularly specific about that part) had ended in Quirrell's death, and an unconscious Potter, who since then had remained in that state in the hospital wing.

All in all, quite an exciting tale – but one with too many gaps for Lena's liking.

Frowning, she asked Tizzy, "And McGonagall didn't mention a specific cause of death for Quirrell? Or if it was an accident, or if Potter intended to kill him?"

Lena was surprised when Tizzy looked around furtively. Seemingly content that all the other elves were busy with other tasks and not listening to their conversation, she leaned across the table at which that they were sitting.

"Well, Miss Lena," the house-elf whispered conspiratorially, "the truth is, Tizzy did not tell the other house-elves everything she heard Professor McGonagall say to Professor Sprout."

Lena raised an eyebrow. It wasn't like the Hogwarts house-elves to keep secrets from each other. "Why not, Tizzy?"

Tizzy looked around the kitchens again. Once she was confident they wouldn't be overheard, she said in a low voice, "Because Tizzy does not want to cause a panic, Miss Lena. But," the elf gazed up at Lena, concern filling her big eyes, "Tizzy wants Miss Lena to know. "

Her curiosity piqued, Lena leaned in so her face was only inches away from Tizzy. "What did you hear?" she murmured.

Tizzy took a deep breath. "Professor McGonagall said," she whispered, "that Professor Dumbledore told her that the bad Professor Quirrell was being possessed by... He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named!"

It was as though time had come to a standstill for Lena. Her entire body went rigid, and her heart seemed to have stopped. Then one of the house-elves dropped a saucepan, and the crash jolted Lena back to the present.

Her mouth was dry, but Lena's quiet voice was full of urgency. "Possessed? Do you mean, as in he was co-inhabiting Quirrell's body?"

Tizzy gazed back at her, and Lena realised it wasn't just concern in the house-elf's eyes, but fear.

"Miss Lena," whispered Tizzy, "Professor Dumbledore said he thinks that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was at Hogwarts the whole year!"

Lena stared at Tizzy, frozen.

The house-elf appeared to realise that Lena's reaction to this was more than just mere shock or fright. "Miss Lena?" she asked, worried. "Are you–"

"And has he gone?" Lena's voice sounded distant to her own ears, as if she was no longer in the kitchens, but listening from outside.

Tizzy blinked, and continued to peer at Lena anxiously. "Professor Dumbledore says he left last night, after..." she paused for a moment, "after Quirrell died. He fled, Miss Lena," the elf finished quietly.

Lena didn't reply. She just stared at the wall behind Tizzy, completely still.

Hesitantly, Tizzy ventured, "Miss Lena? Are you all right?"

For a few seconds, she didn't react. Then slowly, Lena's gaze drifted to Tizzy.

"Yes, thank you, Tizzy," she responded, polite, but still distant. "And thank you for telling me... everything." She paused. "But I've wasted enough of your time. I'll let you get back to work."

Although it wasn't phrased as an order, Tizzy took Lena's words as a dismissal. The house-elf nodded, and slipped off the bench. Before she returned to her work, she softly said to Lena, "Tizzy was happy to see Miss Lena today. Tizzy always likes talking to Miss Lena."

Lena smiled at Tizzy, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. She watched the elf a moment longer as she joined some other house-elves who were preparing a roast beef, and then Lena, taking a sip of the still-hot tea, allowed herself to be swallowed back up by her thoughts.

He had been there. The whole year. The whole, fucking year. At some times, literally only metres away from her. And not once had he let her know.

Lena took a violent gulp of tea, not caring if it burned her mouth. The hand not holding the mug clenched the edge of the table tightly, the knuckles white.

Did that mean he had been able to see her? Had he used Quirrell's eyes to take at least one proper look at his old pupil? Lena swallowed another mouthful of tea, and dug her nails into the table even harder. 'Was that why he was always looking at me?' she asked herself. 'Because it was Voldemort who was looking at me?'

She released her grip on the table and quickly drank the rest of the tea. Distractedly, she said goodbye to the house-elves, and left the kitchen, no idea of where she was heading. In her head, she replayed every interaction she'd had with Quirrell that year, until she found herself standing in front of a door. It took a moment for her to realise it was the door to the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. Without thinking, she turned the handle and opened the door.

The classroom was empty. She stared at the teacher's desk, and after closing the door behind her, automatically moved towards it. Reaching it, she leaned against it, and closed her eyes.

Lena felt a vague sense of surprise that she hadn't thrown up. She didn't even feel a little bit nauseous. Nor did she feel the urge to cry. Instead, something else was building up inside her, expanding until it filled every fibre of her soul and body.

She didn't notice the desks and chairs behind her beginning to rise off the ground, or how the windows were beginning to crack.

But if somebody had passed the DADA classroom in those following minutes, they surely would have noticed the sound of unreserved destruction coming from inside the room.

Well, that brings us to the conclusion of the Philosopher's Stone section of To Be Human. Next chapter, we begin the Chamber of Secrets part of the story.

A big thank you to the reviewers of the last chapter, I really appreciated your responses. Also, thank you to everyone who has followed or favourited the story :)

So after finishing Chapter 8, I had a Guest review for Chapter 5, and I thought they brought up some valid points of contention, which I'd like to address, because it's possible other people were wondering about this sort of stuff. So:

It's important to remember when reading (and for me, writing) this story that in canon (as far as I know), until the end of the fifth book, we don't see any children of convicted Death Eaters attending Hogwarts. The Malfoys, for instance, are still respected in the wider Wizarding community until Lucius' capture and arrest at the Ministry, but up until that point, Draco isn't really seen at Hogwarts as the son of a Death Eater, but as a child from a powerful and influential family.

But when Lena arrived at Hogwarts in 1987, the older students would have been about 10 or 11 by the end of the War – old enough, then, to recall any of the news reports about the Death Eater trials. In GoF, Sirius says the discovery that Barty Crouch Jr. was a Death Eater caused a big scandal. Presumably, then, much of the public would have known what he and the Lestranges were caught doing.

In my mind, Lena was the first child of a convicted Death Eaters to attend Hogwarts since the end of the War, and it would have been a fair assumption for people to make that she would share her parents' views, as canon shows us that it is more common than not for the value of blood purity to be passed from generation to generation.

Now, we know Lena doesn't share her parents' views, and that she in fact hated Bellatrix and Rodolphus. But Lena never openly stated that when she arrived at Hogwarts. As you can see from her conversation with Draco, she still doesn't – instead of chastising him for calling Maggie a 'mudblood', she makes it appear that she is punishing him for daring to question her choice of associates.

Between the end of the War and her arrival at Hogwarts, nobody really knew where Lena had been, or what she'd been doing. So when she turns up, teachers like McGonagall are wary of her simply because for all they know, she had spent the last five-and-a-half years being indoctrinated with blood supremacist ideologies and how to use the Dark Arts. So the teachers are waiting to see whether this is correct or not. And then within three weeks of beginning Hogwarts, Lena is linked to what appears to be an act of very Dark magic, and this easily lines up with the idea of Lena following in her parents' footsteps.

Meanwhile, the older students who remember hearing about Lena's parents and already associate her with them, tell the younger students who wouldn't remember about the Lestranges. And those younger students in turn tell the students younger than them when they arrive, and so on, until even students like Harry and Ron who were babies at the end of the War know who the Lestranges were, and why this means Lena obviously must be such a terrible person.

The Slytherins , on the other hand, tend to dislike her because despite being a member of their house, Lena basically rejects her housemates. Instead of forming connections with the students whose families are less covert about their blood purist values, she sort-of-befriends Maggie, a girl without any known Wizarding connections. And then she is suspected of attacking a member of her own house. So while most Slytherins won't openly antagonise Lena because they're afraid of her, they don't pretend to be her biggest fan. For the Slytherins, Lena's a bit like a monster they're watching tear apart other creatures (i.e. students from other houses), but they also know that at anytime, she could turn on them, and they would be, to put it simply, totally fucked.

Snape has another two reasons for disliking Lena which are at the same time similar and different to the general reasons. Firstly, the 'Spinner's End' chapter in HBP makes it seem like Snape and Bellatrix never got on, which is believable considering that Snape was a half-blood and Bellatrix viewed anything less than a pureblood with contempt. So Snape has difficulty getting past that with Lena, just as he can't really separate Harry from James. And secondly, Snape knows Voldemort had some sort of relationship with Lena – he doesn't know the exact nature of it, but he suspects that Lena was a sort of protégée of Voldemort's, and that there was a certain degree of affection on both sides. And Voldemort killed the woman Snape loved, so the fact that Lena had a bond with him allows Snape to project some of that anger and hatred he would have been harbouring for Voldemort on to Lena.

So in regards to the Guest reviewer's point that "This sort of set-up of having one student hated by the school but having a few students on the outcast's side is common in fic... and while it doesn't necessarily feel forced here, it just doesn't quite fit with Lena's background" – I hope what I've written here justifies why I made the decisions I have surrounding the perceptions of Lena, and her relationships with others.

If any of that doesn't make sense, or people still have questions about the choices I've made, please do ask. As I've hopefully shown here, I do put serious thought into these decisions, and I'm more than happy to share my reasoning. And it's good to know if that sort of stuff isn't coming through clearly in my writing.

Well, that was much longer than I expected it to be. It was a bit rambling, so thank you to anyone who stuck with it :)