Livi

The Slytherin dormitories were far more elaborate and sprawling than she'd imagined. Oh, certainly, her uncle had made numerous comments on how elegant it all was, once even making a terrible joke about pure gold chandeliers and cornices and the like - joking, naturally, as a proper Slytherin would never adorn their halls with anything but pure silver. Although, not even silver made much of an appearance. No, iron seemed the metal of the dungeons, heavy chandeliers of it that could crush several students if they collapsed and elaborate iron railing and small sconces carved with the likeness of snakes.

Then, there was her bedroom…

It was twice the size of hers at home, with a vaulted ceiling - something that had to be a charm, because it didn't make sense otherwise, not when there were three more floors above theirs - and pendant light fixtures made, of course, of iron. Two large round windows looked out onto the lake, giving the entire room this murky green light. Her bed was this ornate, ebony four poster and she sank into it, the mattress thicker than that of the princess with the pea - one of her mother's favorite stories growing up. There was even a small sitting area.

The one downside to it all was that she had a roommate. Astor, thankfully, though she'd pretended not to notice that such fortune had less to do with luck and more because the other girls hadn't wanted to be paired with "the mudblood's daughter".

Waking up to it all, her first official morning at Hogwarts, with fresh eyes and cleared of exhaustion, she couldn't help but gape, just a little.

Objectively, yes, Livi knew that her family was quite wealthy, more than even the Malfoys, but… she'd never lived like that. She hadn't woken up in her family's manor, had a dozen house-elves to wait on her, had never looked around a room so obviously filled with expensive things - like the common room, last night, there'd been an erkling's skull just sitting on an end table, like it was nothing, and she'd passed a portrait by Lessie Bowditch on the way to her dorms last night. It was so… odd.

It was more like living in some museum than a place that was meant to be home for the next seven years.

Shaking aside all those fanciful thoughts, Livi climbed from her bed. Astor's bed had been made with remarkable precision, not so much as a single wrinkle across the green bedspread. Of the girl herself, there was no sign. Had Livi woken up too late?

"Tempus." Oh, good, it was only half past seven.

Where, then, had the girl gone off to so early?

Well, it hardly mattered to her, Livi decided, and moved to her trunk. An athame rested on the very top of all her neatly folded clothing and books, a star carved into the hilt. Her uncle had given it to her yesterday, reminding her to be safe.

Tucked underneath it was a roll of parchment. Livi snatched up both and moved to the door-

Right as it swung open.

Both girls froze, Livi clutching a knife in her hand and the other girl staring with wide eyes. If anyone had walked in on them at that precise moment, they likely would've believed Livi about to stab the Potter girl.

Cheeks warming, she lowered the knife. "Sorry."

Astor didn't move, still eyeing the athame. "What are you doing with that?"

A dozen different half formed retorts rose to her mind, but they were all wrong, and, really, Astor should use it too, and… "Blood magic," she blurted out. "There's a spell. It'll prevent anyone from us from entering the dorms. And, well, our head of house, too, I suppose."

"And you know how to cast that?" Astor asked, stepping forwards, this odd, bright glint in her eyes.

"No." Should Livi's heart be beating this fast? She was the one with the knife, after all, not Astor, and yet… "The spell was already there, we only need to activate it."

Astor cocked her head to the side, eerily reminiscent of an owl with her wide eyed, curious look.

"Gelvira Slytherin herself added the spells," she continued to ramble, because what else would she do? "With the help of Mordicus Gaunt. It's apparently really complex, and nobody's entirely certain how she did it." Her uncle had tried to figure it out, once, and ended up with it exploding in his face - literally - a fierce lecture from his parents, and a month's detention to the surprise of everyone. After all, princes of Slytherin did not get detention, let alone that much.

"What do we do?"

Livi relaxed a little at the question. "Wlel, first, we should probably close the door."

The other girl swiftly obeyed, and Livi moved forwards, slicing her finger open with a wince - why did it have to hurt so much - and then flicking the blood onto the door. A soft hiss, like water spilling onto a hot stove.

"Your turn."

Astor didn't even flinch as she pricked her finger, then copied Livi's move and let the blood trickle onto the doorknob. Another hiss, then…

A quick, bright flash, a web of odd golden symbols - not Elder Furthak, not Ancient Egyptian, not any of the languages commonly used for enchanting - appearing all across the door, an intricate lattice. It faded quickly away.

"Well."

Livi nodded. "I think that means it worked?" Hopefully. Probably. She'd really rather not have to ask Professor Gaunt about it.

Shaking her head, she unrolled the parchment, and found a series of other warding spells on the parchment. Astor, curious, peeked over her shoulder, and some of the spells did seem like family magic, but… she didn't push her away, and , well… it would be nice to have a little help with it all.

Then, another thought crossed her mind. "You know, blood magic is technically illegal."

Astor only laughed.

Astor

"Is that her?"

"There, with the scar–"

"Beside that Lestrange boy–"

"No, not her, the redhead."

"Is she really a Slytherin?"

"I bet she's evil."

The whispers followed me everywhere through my first day, some louder than others. Ridiculous stories about how corrupt I must be for the Hat to sort me into the house of serpents, about how maybe it wasn't some great holy power that had defeated Voldemort, but a wicked darkness that had only grown and thrived in the past decade, that perhaps I was already on my way to casting Unforgivables. Others seemed to pity me, sending me sad looks and murmuring about how tragic it was, how awful Slytherin must be, what could've possibly gone wrong.

That didn't ruin my excitement, though. I was at magic school. What kind of child didn't dream of that?

And so it was with a wide smile on my face - "Unnerving, that," Eros murmured, "How can anyone be so cheery so early?" - that I trailed along with the other first years to our very first class. Somehow, a sixth year prefect had drawn the short straw and been made to escort us, scowling all the while and getting a withering look from one of the girls, Dahlia or Deanna or something like that, when he snapped at her friend.

He passed halfway down a curved corridor, windows all on one side, and gestured to a door. Not even waiting for us to enter, he took off again. Clearly, he had better things to do.

Rolling my eyes, I stepped into the classroom.

A wide aisle ran the length of the classroom, ending at a large desk covered in piles and piles of books, so many that they spilled onto the floor and stacked up on the windowsill behind it. Two rows of long, sleek desks lined either side, facing the aisle, and a few Ravenclaws had already sat on one side.

As if following an unspoken rule, the Slytherins streamed past me and sat on the other side, facing them. Like two rivaling parties, with the professor in between as some sort of mediator - except, said professor didn't look nearly up to the task, barely three feet tall and with great wisps of white hair and so, so small that it looked like the first moderately strong gust of wind would knock him right over.

His entire face lit up as he spotted me, though, and he bounded over, beaming. "Miss Potter! It is a pleasure to finally meet you."

"Oh, yes," Polaris Malfoy murmured to Parkinson, "the great Girl-Who-Lived."

The professor's smile never wavered. "I knew your mother, you know. One of my best students! A shame she didn't have the chance to finish her charms mastery, she could've done great things."

Avery snorted.

The professor glanced at him, and his blue eyes were suddenly very, very sharp. "Isaac Avery, I believe?"

The boy raised an eyebrow. "Yes, so?"

He nodded. "I remember your father. Abysmal at charms. I believe he received a T on his OWLs."

The boy flushed; several people snickered, including some Slytherins.

"Well, Miss Potter," the professor said to me, "I hope you will live up to your parents."

If I was Bryony, I would've flushed. As it was, I simply bowed my head and nodded solemnly, then quickly took the seat left to me beside Eros. He very fixedly was not looking at Livi on his other side.

The teacher returned to the front of the class, and, well… it was hard to imagine that anyone could climb a tower of books - all very thick and wider than my head - gracefully, and yet somehow he managed to glide right to the top of the precarious stack, his head held high and smile bright as ever.

"Now, then," he said, "if we shall begin, I am Filius Flitwick. Those who follow dueling may be familiar with my name." Indeed, a couple Ravenclaws had straightened up, and Eros looked at him with renewed interest, the lazy look fading a little. "However, today, we will not be discussing any of that, but rather the different branches of magic and what, precisely, a 'charm' is."

He looked across the classroom, eyes sparkling. "Though many like to bandy about dark magic and light, healing spells, and all that, there are really only two types of magic: transfiguration, which changes one thing to something completely different, or charms, which merely adds something new to an object or creature."

A Slytherin girl raised her hand.

"Yes, Miss Greengrass?"

Oh, so that was her name.

"What about Conjuring, sir?"

"Ah. Well… I am not your Transfiguration teacher, however a quick explanation can't hurt anyone. Just don't tell Minnie." He winked at us all. "Conjuring does not, in fact, conjure anything, as something cannot be created from nothing. Rather, it transforms the air around you into the object you wished to create."

A series of nods and a mad dash of notes.

"Now then, before anyone asks about Potions… It is an old argument about whether potions should qualify as its own kind of magic, or be considered a kind of enchantment - that is, a charm. Thus far, there has been no resolution, and I somehow doubt there will be in the near future…"

He continued on about charms theory, and, by the end of the lesson, my hand ached from all the notes I'd taken.

Defense Against the Dark Arts was in a classroom on the third floor that was ever so slightly crooked, curving a little to the right, and across from the tapestry of Morgana ripping a witch's heart out. As if to add to the gore, the room itself had a massive skeleton – Livi whispered that it belonged to a dragon – dangling from the vaulted ceiling, and along the walls were images of witches casting spells, of wizards dueling, of bodies on the ground and other graphic, gruesome things that would've made Aunt Petunia faint dead.

Several odd devices were scattered across the room, foreign whizzing silver things and strange iron or bronze contraptions. Creatures had been preserved in glass, vicious, disturbing monsters that had been shrunken down to the size of Barbie dolls, and Livi flinched back from one.

"That's a manticore," she hissed.

I probably would've been more impressed if I knew what a manticore was. Maybe I should borrow that creature book from Bryony.

The Gryffindors began streaming in, one knocking into me with an angry look. Livi shot him a withering glare, then tugged me over to a seat in the second row.

But that one Gryffindor – I later learned his name was Seamus Finnigan – wasn't the only one upset. Several of them sent me dirty looks, and this tiny part of me wanted to shrink in, to hide, to cower. But no, I was stronger than that.

So I straightened up and carefully laid my hands on the desk before me, ignoring the looks, pretending they didn't affect me.

On the far end of the room was a balcony, curved like the ones in churches, and it was from there that the handsome professor appeared, stepping out of the shadows doorway and into the light. Strands of gold glowed in his hair.

"You will not need your textbooks," the professor said, stopping several students midway. "I have no interest in watching students read. That, you will be expected to keep up with on your own." His voice spread throughout the room, even as he stood on the balcony high above us, looming like a king over his subjects. "Who can give me a definition on the Dark Arts?"

A hand shot up in the air on the Gryffindor side of the room.

A tiny smile tugged at his lips, and he inclined his head to the girl. "Tell me, then, how would you define it?"

"The Dark Arts are a magic that intends harm to those it is cast upon."

"A prosaic answer," Gaunt said, still smiling, "and one quoted almost directly from your textbook, if I'm not mistaken."

The girl's cheeks colored.

"It is also, arguably, true." Gaunt began down the stairs, deep blue robes sweeping around him. "Many spells that the Ministry would classify as 'dark' are, in fact, simply curses. However, this easy answer lacks elegance and is in itself flawed."

A Gryffindor boy raised his hand in the air.

Gaunt inclined his head, gesturing to him to speak.

"Are you saying that the Ministry is wrong?"

A smile glimmered on his face, bright and wicked. "I would never dream of disagreeing with our esteemed Ministry, Mr. Thomas."

The boy jolted at the sound of his last name, then grew rather waxen.

Gaunt swept around, turning to face the rest of the class. "The Dark Arts are truly considered thus because they corrupt those who use them. It is said to scar the soul." He still had that dark smile on his face, like the very idea amused him.

A shiver crawled down my spine.

"This makes the dark wizards who have truly delved into their craft very dangerous, because they have no love for others, no compassion or kindness. It is truly difficult to resist the call of the Dark once you have tasted it."

Then, he whirled and stalked to the very front of the class, in front of his wide mahogany desk. "Now, can you give me an example of a truly dark spell… Miss Potter."

My stomach plunged as every eye in the classroom focused on me. Did I answer his question, and reveal that I perhaps knew more about the Dark Arts than I should? Or, should I differ, plead ignorance?

"Fiendfyre, professor," I said simply, and everyone stared at me.

"Where did you read about fiendfyre?" one of the Gryffindors burst out.

I turned to him, blinking innocently. "It was in our textbook. Page… 303, I believe? The glossary on less common curses."

"She's read the entire textbook," one of the other Gryffindors hissed to his friend in a rather loud whisper.

"Quite correct, Miss Potter," Professor Gaunt interrupted in a cool drawl before the whispers could continue, "Oh, and five points from Gryffindor for senseless interruptions."

All thirteen Gryffindors tensed up like angry cats.

He turned away from them. "Now, then… fiendfyre. It is quite a dangerous spell. Can anyone tell me why?"

A hesitant hand rose in the hand, the same girl as before, and Gaunt waved his hand to indicate she continue. "Well," she said, "it does require the castor to focus on a deep hatred."

Gaunt nodded. "Yes, to cast fiendfyre, a person must focus on someone they hate so much that they would be willing to burn away their very soul to see dead. But what else would you expect from the fires of hell?"

He whirled sharply around flicking his wand, and the chalkboard rolled away from where it'd been left beside the wall. Words appeared across it, written in a sharp, elegant script:

THE DARK ARTS

Damages a person's "soul" or sense of reason

Requires some sort of sacrifice to cast

Feeds on negative emotions and often magnifies them

"These are the three things that contribute to classifying a spell as dark," the professor said. "As defined before, a dark spell will erode a wizard's soul, or rather their sense of reason. This may well be connected to three." He tapped a wand against the number, drawing everyone's attention to it. "Many dark spells will feed off of negative emotions such as hate or anger. Fiendfyre, for example," he nodded at me, "feeds off the emotion of hate and will not work if the feeling is not sufficiently strong, thus part of why it is not actually deemed illegal by the Ministry. However, the spell itself will also magnify this emotion, and this is often what causes the castor to lose control.

"This also connects to the sacrifice." He moved his wand to the second one. "The person is sacrificing their feeling of hatred to the spell, though because of the nature of Fiendfyre itself the emotion will not be drawn out entirely."

Everyone in the classroom seemed to have the same thought: that could happen? One boy looked as if he were about to be sick, and a pair of girls were clutching each other tightly. The other Slytherins, for their part, were blank, though Livi had gone a little pale and Eros's bored sprawl was a bit fixed.

"Another example would be blood magic. The blood of the castor, or sacrifice," and here, Gaunt smiled again, "will be required for the spell."

A boy raised his hand.

Gaunt paused. "Yes, Mr. Thomas?"

"Isn't blood magic illegal because it requires a person to die for it?" he asked. "Why would the castor sacrifice themselves?"

"There are many times when a person may sacrifice his or her life for a cause," the professor replied blandly, "or, if they do not wish to die, they merely need to trick some fool into performing the spell."

Several people paled at that.

"However, in the case of blood magic, it is propaganda that it requires death. Many spells simply require a few drops of blood, and are quite harmless."

"How could blood magic be harmless?" another Gryffindor asked.

Professor Gaunt leveled him with a cold look. "That is the second time you've interrupted my class, Mr. Finnigan. A third and you will be in detention with Filch."

For some reason, that had the boy shrinking back.

"To answer your question, there are numerous uses of blood magic in healing potions or ward schemes. Neither of which would be harmful, would they?" His words dropped with condescension.

Nobody dared to respond.

The rest of the class was devoted to the classifications of jinxes, hexes, and curses, along with a few examples of each. When he finally dismissed us, everyone fell into whispers.

"Where'd you read about fiendfyre?" Livi whispered as I packed away my notes. "I've read the textbook, too, and it was barely a footnote."

I gave her a bland look. "Well, I wasn't going to admit where I really read it, was I?"

Before Livi could respond, a group spilled inside, all with yellow and black ties. Bryony looked away from the Granger boy, spotted me, and grinned.

"Astor!" she darted over, beaming, and I couldn't help but be aware of all the eyes on us – Gryffindors and Slytherins and Hufflepuffs and one particular Slytherin, our red-eyed professor looking on even as he pretended to be perusing a book.

I forced a bright smile. "Hey. How's Hufflepuff?"

"Brilliant." She, too, seemed to feel the eyes of others. "Although, you look better in green than I probably do in yellow."

"Red hair and a yellow tie?" I replied, tugging on a lock of her hair. "It's like an inferno."

She laughed softly.

Eros stepped up beside me. "We should go. We don't want to hold up the class."

I nodded. "Why don't we meet up later in the library? We can catch up." Without anyone else watching.

She glanced at Granger. "I, uh, actually promised to work on a Transfiguration essay with Hector–"

"It's fine," I said quickly, forcing my smile not to waver even as my heart twisted. "Another time."

And I grabbed my bag and slipped out of the room as the Ravenclaws began to stream in. As the door closed behind the final Ravenclaw, I heard Professor Slytherin say, "You will not need your textbooks." Did he rehearse what he'd said today?

As we made our way down the spiral staircase cutting through the Turris Magnus, I said, "That was fascinating, wasn't it?"

"More like disturbing," Livi murmured.

I blinked at her.

"He was rather entranced with his subject matter, wasn't he?" Eros noted.

"Entranced?" Livi countered. "He sounded amused at the idea of someone shattering their soul. It made my skin crawl."

I shrugged. Oh, he'd certainly been a bit disturbing, but he'd also been blunt, brutally so at points, and it had been fascinating to learn how many different classifications bad magic could have. As interesting as any of the books I'd picked up in Obscurus Books, and that I hadn't expected.

Perhaps Hogwarts would be more thrilling than I'd thought.

I hovered over the room, floating near the ceiling as if I'd drift off, but something tethered me in place. Below me was a vast stone chamber, and in the middle of it was a table, strange symbols carved on it - runes, some distant part of my brain whispered.

A woman was on that table, screaming and thrashing against her restraints, sobbing, and a man leaned over her, chanting, hurting her… there was blood, so much blood… It was so hard to focus on it, and my head hurt, and I just wanted to drift off-

Pain spiked through me, tearing me open-

The world twisted and blurred, darkness surrounding me-

Distant, distorted screams-

Someone leaned over me, and I didn't think, I just shoved. The person tumbled back. I jerked upright, shadows writhing around me. I reached out a hand, and my wand snapped into it; at the same time, a light appeared above us, a tiny bubble of it. The shadows hissed and shrank back a little, enough to see, to understand…

A girl had fallen to the floor and now sat up, leaning back on her hands and not even blinking at the wand pointed at her face. Her grey eyes stared right into mine, unfazed.

I didn't move; neither did she.

Then-

A breath.

A pause.

A tension vanishing; the shadows retreated.

"Livi?" Part of me whispered to lower the wand, that she was a friend, that she could be trusted… but another part of me kept the wand pointed at her, waiting. Patiently. Not speaking a word.

Here was the thing about silence: it unsettled people. Very rarely could two people stand an extended silence between them, and so one of them would inevitably break it. Especially with a wand - as close to the equivalent of a gun the wizards' had - pointed at them.

"I'm sorry." The words hung in the air, empty. "You had a nightmare. I tried to wake you."

I stared at her a moment, but there was no whisper, no warning that she was being less than truthful – like the shadows always gave when Uncle Vernon or Aunt Petunia spoke of my parents. So I lowered my wand.

I didn't apologize, and she didn't ask.

She did say, "If you have nightmares often, the infirmary has potions for such things."

I nodded, settling back in bed, and shifted so my back was to her. As clear of an: I don't want to talk as it could get.

She settled into her bed, neither of us speaking. The light hovered over us, not wavering, chasing away the dark… for now, anyway.

But that was the thing about darkness: it was always there, lurking just on the edge of one's vision, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

And the light could only chase it away for so long before it consumed everything.