By Monday, Draco still hadn't returned to classes. Blaise and Pansy alternated taking notes for him and bringing them to the Hospital Wing. The latter was acting like a widow at her husband's funeral, and only 'allowed' Blaise to help her with Draco's notes because she wasn't in Arithmancy and couldn't get the work to him.

However, learning wasn't the only thing he was missing out on.

"What do you mean Flint is having Quidditch tryouts tommorrow? I can't fly like this!"

Blaise shrugged. "He told us to tell you. He says that he let you on the team without trying you out first because your father bought new brooms for the team, and he was willing to take a risk without seeing anyone else. But this year, if you want to stay on the team he wants you to be the best seeker there."

"How am I supposed to do that?" Draco asked.

"Flint also said that he hopes you 'get well soon,' and that he will just remember how you fly and compare it to whoever shows up to the tryouts. He claims he has a perfect memory," Avalon added. "It doesn't seem like a reliable plan, but this is Flint we're talking about so it's about what you would expect."

Draco leaned forward and dropped his voice to a whisper. "Could you talk to Flint and get him to push the tryouts back to Thursday?"

"Will you be completely healed by then?"

Blaise's question was met with a wink from Draco, which gave them everything he needed to know. He was definitely putting on an act, at least a little bit.

He still hadn't made his 'grand return' by Tuesday, when the other Slytherins had Defense Against the Dark Arts with Professor Lupin. Unlike Professor Vector, he was not in the classroom when the students arrived. When the man did show up, he told them to put away their books and parchment and follow him, please. They would be having a practical lesson.

"I like the out-of-the-box thinking," Blaise muttered to Daphne as they turned down the Hogwarts corridors.

"Let's see how this plays out," she whispered back. "Lockhart's idea of a 'practical lesson' involved setting various creatures loose in the classroom. And it happened more than once. This isn't necessarily a good thing.

"True."

When Professor Lupin stopped walking, they had reached the staffroom door. Inside was an old wardrobe, probably full of teachers' spare robes. It started wobbling and banging against the wall without him touching it.

Theo jumped back, using Blaise as a shield.

"Don't worry Theodore. There's a Boggart inside, that's all." Professor Lupin smiled. "I'm sure Blaise would appreciate having his arm back."

The other Slytherins laughed. Theo's face turned redder than Weasley's hair and he released Blaise's arm. He looked more embarrassed than Professor Lupin had probably intended, as he hated being laughed at. The professor continued talking. "I found this bugger earlier this afternoon. They like dark, enclosed spaces. Does anyone know what a Boggart is?"

"It's a shape-shifter!" Tracey Davis answered from across the room. Everyone seemed surprised by this.

"Exactly," Professor Lupin continued. "It can take the shape of whatever will frighten us the most. So, this Boggart is waiting in the darkness in its natural form. And no one knows what he looks like in that state, but he will become what we each fear. The best way to confuse him is by having multiple people. He won't know what to do with himself."

"How do you defeat a Boggart?"

"The charm is simple. The greatest weapon against a Boggart is laughter. You need to force him to assume a shape you find amusing. Repeat after me: 'riddikulus!'"

The students all said 'riddikulus' a few times on their own, but prepareed to face the creature.

Professor Lupin scanned the nervous-looking third year students. "Tracey! I'm sure you can be the first person to help defeat the Boggart. Tell me, what is it that frightens you most in the world?"

Without a moment of hesitation, she answered, "Werewolves."

"Right." Professor Lupin's brow furrowed, but he continued quickly and the furrow was gone so quickly they were sure they imagined it. "Now, I want you to think of something that would make a… terrifying werewolf a little less scary and a little more humorous. Do you think you can do that? Really picture it in your minds eye. When the boggart comes out of the wardrobe, it will assume the form of a werewolf. Raise your wand, like so, and shout, 'riddikulus,' and concetrate on whatever it is that will make the werewolf humorous to you."

"Yes, Professor!"

"All right, everyone back up and give Tracey a clear shot."

The other students needed no convincing, and moved away from the wardrobe to the safety of the walls. Tracey put on her bravest face and nodded at Professor Lupin solemnly.

"One… two… three… now!"

Professor Lupin shot sparks at the wardrobe and it burst open. A menacing werewolf stumbled out and into the staffroom, growing menacingly and slobbering onto the floor. Pansy pinched her nose in disgust. Tracey's knuckles were white from gripping her wand tightly. She spell was lost on her tongue and the creature was getting closer to the girl frozen in fear.

"Professor, do something!" Pansy cried, covering her eyes.

He started to step towards Tracey, but she closed her eyes and stammered, "Riddikulus!"

Crack! The werewolf stopped mid step and shook out his fur. It started falling out in heavy clumps onto the ground, until he stood before them clean-shaven and bright pink, cowering like a chilly housepet.

"Vincent! Go ahead."

Crabbe took Tracey's place. Crack! The naked werewolf turned into hundreds of mice, charging at him. The large boy covered his face with his hands, and it wasn't until the first mouse reached him that he could muster the strength to perform the spell. "Riddikulus!" Crack! The mice were doing tiny acrobatic tricks like circus performers.

Goyle was next, and he was also afraid of mice. The same scene played out, which made their classmates laugh. They knew Crabbe and Goyle were practically the same person, but having the same fear made it much funnier.

Daphne was apparenlty afraid of vampires. Pansy feared Buckbeak (causing eyerolls from from Blaise). Theo stepped up to the wardrobe, and the unicorn-that-was-once-Buckbeak turned into a small series of snakes. "Riddikulus!" They turned into green noodles and stop writhering about.

Blaise and Millicent were the next to to go.

"Avalon! Forward!" She took her place in front of the wardrobe, bracing herself for whatever it was that would face her when the Boggart registered her presence.

Daphne gasped at the sight. "Is that—?"

Avalon's biggest fear was her father. Most of the Slytherins knew each others parents because they ran in the same pureblood circles, and so they all understood the significance of the figure before them. Boggart-Edgar took three lumbering steps towards his 'daughter,' and raised his hand quickly. She couldn't move. Just when Avalon was sure she was going to relive that night, the Boggart switched forms. He had sensed something deeper, something that terrified her more than her father.

Vivid dark green skin. Striking yellow eyes. A large hissing sound. Some sort of large snake.

The creature slithered forward, poised to attack. Avalon could feel the fear coursing through her veins, but why would she be afraif of a monster if she didn't even know what it was. It had reached her, and was rearing up it's head to attack.

"Is that a basilisk?" he asked.

Although she was still frozen, she felt slightly better knowing what the creature was. It made sense that she would be afraid of it. She still had nightmares, the feeling of not feeling, of falling after her encounter with the creature. The real version, not the Boggart. Stepping forward before anything got out of hand, Professor Lupin pointed his wand at the creauture.

"Riddikulus!"

Avalon somehow got her legs to move as she watched the—whatever it was—shrink to the size of a small python. It began to inflate, as if someone were blowing it up with air. When it was too round to function any longer, it exploded into a thousand tiny wisps of smoke. Crack! It was gone as quickly as it had come.

Professor Lupin awarded them all points for facing the Boggart and quickly explained to the class what their homework would be ("read the chapter on Boggarts and summarize it for me") but no one was fully listening because they had turned their attention to Avalon.

She was crouched on the ground, clutching her head and breathing too quickly. The other students had never seen her look so pale. Her heart was pounding, her hands were clammy, and she felt like she was going to pass out or throw up or both. Despite her extreme urge to cry, her eyes were dry and no tears would come.

"Professor, is she all right?" Daphne asked.

Professor Lupin dug through his bag and pull out of half of a bar of chocolate, holding it out to her. "She will be. She's just panicking. A particularly frightening Boggart encounter can do that sometimes, we're facing what we fear most in the world. Eat this, Avalon. You'll feel better."

After a few moments of him offering her the chocolate, she calmed down enough to take the candy from him and bite into it slowly. She didn't respond to their talking for another ten minutes, when she finally stopped shaking.

"Are you feeling all right?" Professor Lupin asked.

"You could say that."

In the end, Daphne was sent to take to Avalon to the Hospital Wing while the rest of the class was dismissed for a few moments of break before their next lesson of the day. After several thourough checkups, Madam Pomfrey kept Avalon in the Hospital Wing over halfway into lunch, another bar of chocolate and two Calming Draughts later. Even then it took several protests before she was cleared to resume her schedule.

Draco seemed annoyed at the fact that Avalon was taking away the attention from him, but when he started moaning about it Madam Pomfrey threatened to kick him out, injury or not. He shut up quickly.

When Avalon rejoined her friends in the Great Hall, she tried to pretend that nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

"Can we talk about the fact that Theo is afraid of snakes?" she mustered up a laugh. "We're Slytherins! That's our mascot. What if Potter was afraid of lions? That would be ridiculous, right?"

"You were afraid of snakes too," Theo said.

"That was different. A basilisk can kill you easily," Daphne argued, glaring at him. "And let's not forget Theo's other, not-so-secret fear."

"The dark!" Blaise and Avalon answered. They all cackled.

And just like that, everything shifted back to normal. As quickly as the Boggart could change forms, the conversation changed. Fear wasn't always one consistent thing. It took different forms for different people, and different forms for the same person sometimes, if you were lucky. But sometimes, if you were luckier, you had friends to help you through the fear.

As far as friends went, she was pretty lucky.