Ron shook his head in disbelief. All their friends were looking as though someone had died. Arabella couldn't see what was so terrible.

"Do you want to tell me what's wrong with stopping a massive snake biting off Anthony's head?" she asked hotly. "What does it matter how Lyla did it as long as Anthony doesn't have to join the Headless Hunt?"

"But it does matter," said Hermione, speaking at last in a hushed voice, "because being able to talk to snakes was what Salazar Slytherin was famous for. That's why the symbol of Slytherin House is a serpent."

Arabella was stunned.

"Really?"

"Exactly," said Draco with a sigh. "And with what's just happened, the whole school's going to think you're his great-great-great great-granddaughters or something."

"But– but we're not," piped up Lyla with panic.

"You'll find that very hard to prove," said Daphne sadly.

"He lived about a thousand years ago," said Blaise knowingly, "for all we know, you two could be."

Later that night, Arabella lay awake for hours. Through a gap in the curtains around her four-poster, she watched snow starting to drift past the tower window and wondered…

It was possible, wasn't it? There was so much about the Potter family that was still so unknown. Could she and her sister really be descendants of Salazar Slytherin? Quietly, she tried to say something in Parseltongue. The word, however, wouldn't come. It seemed that she had to be face-to-face with a snake to do it.

'But I'm in Gryffindor!' she thought desperately.'The Sorting Hat wouldn't have put me in here if I had Slytherin blood… but Lyla…'

Arabella turned over restlessly. She'd just have to see Justin the next day in Herbology and explain that Lyla had been calling the snake off, not egging it on, which (she thought angrily, pummeling her pillow) any fool should have realized.

By next morning, however, the snow that had begun in the night had turned into a blizzard so thick that the last Herbology lesson of the term was canceled: Sprout wanted to fit socks and scarves on the Mandrakes, a tricky operation she would entrust to no one else, now that it was so important for the Mandrakes to grow quickly and revive Mrs. Norris and Colin Creevey.

Arabella fretted about this next to the fire in the Gryffindor common room, while Ron and Hermione used their time off to play a game of wizard chess.

"Oh for heaven's sake, Arabella," said Hermione, exasperated, as one of Ron's bishops wrestled her knight off his horse and dragged him off the board. "Go and find Anthony if it's so important."

So she got up and left through the portrait hole, wondering where the Ravenclaw might be. The castle was darker than it usually was in the daytime because of the thick, swirling gray snow at every window. Shivering, Arabella walked past classrooms where lessons were taking place, catching snatches of what was happening within. Professor McGonagall was shouting at someone who, by the sound of it, had turned his friend into a badger. Resisting the urge to take a look and laugh, she continued her mission, thinking that Anthony might be using his free time to catch up on some work, and decided to check the library first.

A group of the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were indeed sitting at the back of the library, but they didn't seem to be working. The group looked to be a mix of all ages, and she even caught sight of Cedric Diggory, Seeker to the Hufflepuff team. Between the long lines of high bookshelves, Arabella could see that their heads were close together and they were having what looked like an absorbing conversation. It was just her luck that Cedric glanced up, catching her eyes with his. His gray eyes crinkled into a friendly smile and he waved, only seconds later to be reprimanded by his peers. Not catching sight of Anthony among them, Arabella began to make her way towards them when something of what they were saying met her ears, and she paused to listen, hidden in the Invisibility section.

"So anyway," a stout boy was saying, "I told Anthony to hide up in the dormitories. I mean to say, if Potter's marked him down as his next victim, it's best if he keeps a low profile for a while."

"Oh, come off it, Ernie," said a very pretty Ravenclaw girl, "she's twelve! She, nor her sister mind you, wouldn't even know how to do any of what you're proposing. It's preposterous!"

"They may be just twelve, but they're also the Heirs of Slytherin!" the boy retorted. "Just cause they're young, doesn't mean they're not deadly, Cho."

"You'd better watch yourself the next time you guys are up against either of those houses in Quidditch," said a girl, her dark eyes, "you too, Diggory."

"Sue, enough!"

"Of course," continued Ernie darkly, "Anthony's been waiting for something like this to happen ever since he let slip to Potter that he was Muggle-born. He actually told her he'd been down for Eton. That's not the kind of thing you bandy about with Slytherin's heir on the loose, is it?"

Arabella coughed loudly.

"I was wondering if I could have a word with Anthony," she said, ignoring Ernie's pointed glare. "I really think he, along with the rest of you, have entirely mistaken what really happened."

"Oh yeah?" said a blonde girl, her cheeks tinged with emotion. "Your sister is a Parselmouth, and I'd bet ten galleons you are too! Are you going to deny it, huh? Or are you–"

"Hannah, enough. Let her talk"

It was Cedric, who looked slightly exasperated.

Before Arabella could get back to what she'd been rehearsing as she walked the corridors, she was once more interrupted.

"Everyone knows that's the mark of a Dark wizard!" cut in another boy, his gaze dark and calculating. "Have you ever heard of a decent one who could talk to snakes? They called Slytherin himself Serpent-tongue."

"Stephen," said the girl who everyone referred to as Cho, "enough with all this hate. You're smart enough to know that any witch or wizard at your current level is unable to–"

"Remember what was written on the wall?" Ernie interrupted. "Enemies of the Heir, Beware. Lyla has had multiple run-ins with Filch. Next thing we know, Filch's cats attacked. That first year, Creevey has been annoying both Potters since the term started. Next thing we know — Creevey's been attacked."

Cho sighed, done with trying to convince younger students of fact.

"If there's a message you'd like to pass on, Arabella, I'd be happy to deliver it to Anthony at another time," she offered.

"I wanted to tell him what really happened with that snake at the Dueling Club," said Arabella.

"We were there," said Sue, "and we saw what happened with our own eyes, thank you."

"Then you noticed that after Lyla spoke to it, the snake backed off, right?"

"All we saw," said Ernie stubbornly, though he was trembling as he spoke, "was your sister speaking Parseltongue and chasing the snake toward Anthony."

"She did no such thing!" said Arabella, fists clenched."It didn't even touch him!"

"It was a very near miss," said Sue snobbishly. "And in case you're getting ideas, I might tell you that you can trace my family back through nine generations of witches and warlocks and my blood's as pure as anyone's, so—"

"– I don't care what sort of blood you've got!" said Arabella fiercely.

"Why would she want to attack Muggle-borns?" asked Cho quickly, eyes bouncing back and forth between the second years.

"Isn't it true that you and your sister were raised by Muggles?" added Cedric helpfully.

Thankful to both the older students' words, Arabella nodded fervently.

"Exactly! I'm best friends with a Muggle-born too. Do you know Hermione Granger?"

"That proves nothing," sniffed Hannah, "not when you also spend time with pure blood fascists like the Malfoys, Notts, and Greengrass's."

Arabella swung her hands up in defeat and turned on her heel, no longer able to remain calm. This was a ridiculous argument, and she only hoped that Cho would do well to pass the message on. She stormed out of the library without another word earning herself a reproving glare from Madam Pince.

Arabella blundered up the corridor, barely noticing where she was going, and boy was she angry. This resulted in her walking directly into something very large and solid, which knocked her backward onto the floor.

"Oh, hello, Hagrid," she said, looking up.

Hagrid's face was entirely hidden by a wooly, snow-covered balaclava, but it couldn't possibly be anyone else, as he filled most of the corridor in his moleskin overcoat. A dead rooster was hanging from one of his massive, gloved hands.

"Alrigh', Ara?" he said, pulling up the balaclava so he could speak. "Why aren't yeh in class?"

"Canceled," sighed Arabella, scrambling to her feet. "What're you doing in here?"

Hagrid held up the limp rooster.

"Second one killed this term," he explained sadly. "It's either foxes or a Blood-Suckin Bugbear, an' I need the Headmaster's permission ter put a charm around the hen coop."

He peered more closely at Arabella from under his thick, snow-flecked eyebrows.

"Yeh sure yeh're all righ'? Yeh look all hot an' bothered —"

Arabella couldn't bring herself to repeat what the other students were saying about her and her sister.

"It's nothing," she said. "I'd better get going, Hagrid, it's Transfiguration next and I've got to pick up my books."

She walked off, her mind still full of what Ernie, Sue, and Hannah had said earlier.

"Anthony's been waiting for something like this to happen ever since he let slip to Potter he was Muggle-born..."

She stamped up the stairs and turned along another corridor, which was particularly dark; the torches had been extinguished by a strong, icy draft that was blowing through a loose windowpane. She was halfway down the passage when she tripped headlong over something lying on the floor. She turned to squint at what he'd fallen over and felt as though his stomach had dissolved.

Anthony Goldstein was lying on the floor, rigid and cold, a look of shock frozen on his face, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. And that wasn't all. Next to him was another figure, the strangest sight the girl had ever seen.

It was Nearly Headless Nick, no longer pearly-white and transparent, but black and smoky, floating immobile and horizontal, six inches off the floor. His head was half off and his face wore an expression of shock identical to Anthony's.

Getting shakily to her feet, her breathing came in fast and shallow, and her heart was doing a kind of drumroll against his ribs. She looked wildly up and down the deserted corridor and noticed a faint line of spiders scuttling as fast as they could away from the bodies. The only sounds were the muffled voices of teachers from the classes on either side.

She could run, and no one would ever know she had been there. But she couldn't just leave them lying here... She had to get help... Would anyone believe that she hadn't had anything to do with this?

As she stood there, panicking, a door right next to him opened with a bang. Peeves the Poltergeist came shooting out.

"Why it's potty wee Potter!" cackled Peeves. "What's Potter up to? Why's Potter lurking—"

Peeves stopped, halfway through a mid-air somersault. Upside down, he spotted Anthony and Nearly Headless Nick. He flipped the right way up, filled his lungs, and, before Arabella could stop him, screamed, "ATTACK! ATTACK! ANOTHER ATTACK! NO MORTAL OR GHOST IS SAFE! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! ATTAAAACK!"

Crash — crash — crash — door after door flew open along the corridor and people flooded out. For several long minutes, there was a scene of such confusion that Anthony was in danger of being squashed and people kept standing in Nearly Headless Nick. Arabella found herself pinned against the wall as the teachers shouted for quiet. McGonagall came running, followed by her class, one of whom still had black-and-white-striped hair. She used her wand to set off a loud bang, which restored silence and ordered everyone back into their classes. No sooner had the scene cleared somewhat than Ernie the Hufflepuff arrived, panting, on the scene.

"Caught in the act!" Ernie yelled, his face stark white, pointing his finger dramatically at Arabella.

"That will do, Macmillan!" said McGonagall sharply.

Peeves was bobbing overhead, now grinning wickedly, surveying the scene.

"Oh, Potter, you rotter, oh, what have you done," the little man sang. "You're killing off students, you think it's good fun —"

"That is enough Peeves!" barked McGonagall.

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