All I wanted to do was to study at the library in peace.

Annoyance pulsed through me as another loud cheer sounded from around the corner, just outside the library. I lifted my head from the dusty tome in front of me and glanced over at Madam Pince's desk, which was unfortunately painfully vacant — she'd been gone for the last few minutes, hurrying briskly through the halls of the castle, her beady gaze fixing me with a look and giving me a curt nod as she passed by. If she were here, she'd tell off whoever was out there in a heartbeat.

Another loud yell and an eruption of cheers met my ears, and I gripped the spine of the book — A Thousand Potions and Poisons — I had splayed out in front of me.

"They could do with a good Silencing Charm."

Terry Boot sat next to me, a quill and parchment in hand, scratching notes on a Herbology paper. As I looked over at him, my eyes fell to the last few lines he had written, which he'd crossed out several times, tiny spots of ink spattered around the last few words. I clearly wasn't the only one finding it hard to concentrate.

Right on cue, a sound not unlike crackling fireworks filled the air and another cheer went through a crowd that only sounded like it was growing, not shrinking.

I slammed A Thousand Potions and Poisons shut, making Terry startle slightly and wince as he crossed out yet another fouled-up line on his parchment.

Sun motes danced as light streamed softly through the high-arching, glass-pane windows to our left, the late afternoon sun dousing everything in a golden light. The sky outside was clear, the cool October air inviting. The outside view overlooked the Quidditch pitch, and several students were taking advantage of the day, whizzing around on their brooms, nothing but blurred figures in the sky. The inside of the library itself was quiet and relatively empty — only a dozen other students scattered around the various mahogany desks, the soft scratching of quills on parchment filling the air.

Or, they would have been, if it wasn't for the firecracker demonstration or whatever the bloody hell was going on just outside the library entrance.

Apparently, a quiet study day was too much to ask for today.

"They're making me seriously consider casting one on them," I said to Terry through gritted teeth.

"You're a prefect, Arianna." He said as he dipped his quill back in his ink. "Maybe you could have it arranged." He only sounded like he was half-joking.

"And become a tyrant like the Slytherin prefects?"

Terry shrugged. "If it is a Slytherin crowd out there, you would be well within your rights to set them straight. God knows Malfoy could stand to be taken down a couple of notches." He grimaced. "Or twenty."

I sighed. "If I wait until Madam Pince comes back, she'll be sure to-"

An ear-splitting pop sounded down the hallway, so loud that several students in the library jumped as if they had been shocked. An eruption of cheers followed, echoing in the large space.

That's it.

I curled my hands into a fist and stood up suddenly, making my chair scoot back with a screech. Terry shifted in his seat to look up at me, his dark hair falling in his eyes, which held a quizzical look in them.

I shook my head at him as I headed to the library entrance, Terry's stare following me as I left. I wasn't planning on using a Silencing Charm on them. I was planning on getting them to shut up the good old-fashioned, non-magical way.

The cheers continued as I rounded the corner, and finally, I could see the source of all the noise — a few dozen students had crowded around in a semi-circle around two figures. As soon as I spotted their ginger hair — hair that could likely be seen from over a mile away —anger pulsed newly through my veins.

Of course.

The Weasley twins were at it again.

For weeks, I'd seen them all over the school, never without at least a few students hanging around them as they showcased all kinds of magical gadgets, items, and sweets. Each time I passed by, I heard a different name. Puking Pastilles, one of the twins had explained as a first-year student looked at him, eyes wide in wonder. They'll get you out of any class right quick. Just make sure you nibble on this other side to get it to stop. Or you'll be spending a lot of time in the loo, believe me…

I had crinkled my nose as I overheard, heading to class. How charming.

Although I had witnessed the advertisement of their products around Hogwarts (typically whenever a professor wasn't present in the halls), none of them were quite as loud and obnoxious as this one.

"Joke wands!" One of the twins called out — it was impossible to tell who from where I was, and they were completely identical anyway, to the point where I sometimes wondered if their mother could even tell them apart — to the crowd around him. "Buy one and give it to your friends for a laugh! They may not cast real spells, but they make a good show!" He waved the wand in a circular motion as if to demonstrate his point, and white sparks shot out at the end, making some girls nearby squeal.

My patience had already worn thin.

"Hey!" I shouted from down the hall, my footsteps reverberating against the stone floor. Hardly anybody paid me any attention, and only a couple of stragglers around the edge of the crowd bothered glancing my way.

"Hey!" I called louder as I reached the crowd, ignoring the dirty looks I got from a few students as I elbowed my way through. Just as I reached the front, a stream of sparks flew toward me, making me jump out of the way on instinct as they whizzed by and fizzled out a few yards behind me. A couple of students sniggered.

"Both of you," I said, addressing the twins, who were looking at me now, a half-surprised, half-amused look on both of their faces that only made me more vexed. "Find somewhere else to do your fireworks display. Now."

"Or what?" A student on the other side of the crowd in a red-and-gold tie called out.

I turned my gaze to him. "Or I'm docking points from Gryffindor."

The student glanced down at my robes, at the blue-and-silver badge that was pinned in the front, the emblem of a raven engraved above the words Prefect.

A few other Gryffindors in the crowd muttered some less-than-kind things, but neither Fred nor George — whoever was who — seem at all ruffled by my words.

"You only say that because you haven't yet been exposed to the wonders of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes," the one closest to me said.

The anger that had been building up in me came bubbling up to the surface. "I've been exposed to it enough to last a lifetime," I spat back at him. "Take this somewhere else, or I'm docking ten points for disrupting students at the library. Unless you want to wait for Madam Pince to come back and dock thirty herself."

"Disturbing the library? You should be thanking us, then!" He said with undeterred enthusiasm as he grabbed another wand from his pocket, a slender black rod.

"Enough." On instinct, I grabbed his arm before he could cause any more sparks to fly out the other end.

"Don't worry, it's not dangerous one bit, at least not if you get in the way," he said to me, as if that would reassure me in any way whatsoever. He turned back to his twin. "What do you think, George? Shall we show her how it's done?" There was a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

Ah. So he's Fred. Not that it mattered now. I was determined to dock points from both of them. "No," I said adamantly. "Don't you dare-"

Fred shoved the joke wand in my hand, placing his fingers on top of mine to give the wand a whirl, and suddenly the rest of the hallway rushed away from me.

I should've seen white sparks. I should've heard the loud crackling noise that had grated on my nerves in the library; the resultant cheers as the students no doubted ate up every bit of the Weasley twins' ridiculous demonstration.

Instead, I was plunged into darkness, my surroundings snuffed out like a candle in the wind, a familiar voice now filling my ears.

You know the spell.

Her whisper crept into my limbs with a paralyzing dread, rooting me to the spot.

I looked down at my hand. The joke wand that had been there moments ago had been replaced with my own, the blackthorn gleaming in a candle-lit room.

No, I thought.

My eyes darted from left to right, desperately trying to find the familiar walls of Hogwarts, but then the whimpers came, and my heart freefell to my feet as I saw him.

The boy, shaking as he lay on the ground before me, stared up at my wand. Silently begging; pleading.

No.

Simultaneous horror and terror pulsed through me as I felt her cold fingers closing around mine, dragging the wand back to aim directly at the boy.

I bit down on my tongue, trying to stop my mouth from opening, from uttering the words that I knew were coming, but reality was slipping away from my grasp. I couldn't even shut my ears as my voice filled the dark, enclosed space, uttering the words of the curse.

I only caught the white of the boy's eyes widening for a fraction of a second before blinding red light erupted from my wand, heading straight for him.

Even as I turned away, his scream pierced through me like a dagger, making my breathing uneven, and my eyes shut tight as I forced back a sob.

But as I stood there, trying to suck in deep, dizzying breaths, willing myself not to retch, different screams meet my ears, fuzzy and distorted, as if my head had been plunged underwater. No. Not screams. Cheers. Shouts. They came sharper and clearer, and I dared to open my eyes again, the stone floor swimming back into my vision, hard and concrete and real.

I turned to Fred, who was standing in front of me again, grinning. "See? Not dangerous at all. The best study break around, if you ask me."

I stared down at the wand I held in my hands, his fingers still on top of mine. It was the joke wand again. I was still in the middle of the crowd, a few students giving me peculiar looks. A thrill of dread raced through me, and my heart began to pound. Did they just see me…?

I couldn't even put my thoughts together properly; my mind was a muddled mess. While I was sure no one had seen what I had just seen, I was sure that they had all just witnessed me freezing on the spot and having a strange episode in front of everyone.

Or perhaps they thought I was petrified of sparklers.

Brilliant.

I yanked my hand away from Fred with all my might, sending the wand clattering to the floor, emitting a few tiny sparks at the end as it hit the ground. He looked up at me, looking almost a bit taken aback by my violent reaction.

But even as I looked at him, my breaths still coming out ragged, her voice whispered in my ears again, making my skin prickle and my hair stand on end. You know the spell.

I didn't say another word as I turned on my heel and ran, not bothering to turn back to gather my books or tell Terry where I was going as I headed in the opposite direction to the library. I kept my feet moving, racing down the hallways and corners and moving staircases until I made it to the entrance of the Ravenclaw tower, where I leaned against a wall, trying to steady my breathing again.

All my previous thoughts of docking points were gone. All that was whirling around in my head now was the boy's white face and her voice, deadly as basilisk venom, tightening around me like a Full-Body Bind, suffocating me, refusing to let me go.

I could run, but even within the secure walls of Hogwarts, I couldn't ever escape her.

Because that woman was my mother.

And my mother was a Death Eater.