Summer is over.

Feeling relief at the thought wasn't odd for Mabel. It happened every year at her departure for Hogwarts, usually accompanied by a vindictive glee at knowing that, for a blessed nine months, she wouldn't have to put up with her father in any capacity besides an occasional curt missive. She remembered feeling free as she stepped onto the train; remembered tossing rude gestures at her father's retreating back; remembered being so angry that her life was the way it was.

All of that had been so childish.

The sky was gray, and the air was cool and humid. Mabel didn't know if her father had followed her onto the platform and didn't care. "Good riddance" at the sight of each others' backs was as close as they ever came to saying "goodbye," and well-wishes were even more impossible. She kept her chin high, regardless, refusing to show anything other than icy disregard in case Lord Orpington was still watching. She passed two other families, both of them saying hurried and teary goodbyes to each other, and then she was reaching the bright red Express.

Mabel boarded without hesitation, posture proud but knees trembling. She didn't pause to give her father one last declaration of her spite. She didn't even turn to see if he was still there.

Instead, she turned into the hall, confirmed that she was now out of sight, and leaned against the paneled wall to pull herself together. Already, the knowledge that in a short while the Express would be carrying her away to Scotland was soothing her, as comforting as the sensation of crossing into protective wards. A few deep breaths… a few moments of darkness behind her eyelids… that was all she needed. She was safe now. For nine months, she'd be unreachable.

One… two… three… four… five. She counted her breaths, and then pulled herself up and straightened her robes with a quick jerk on her collar. She was okay. Fine, in fact. There was no reason to continue panicking in an empty train car.

She had a best friend to locate.

The noise outside was increasing into a deafening cacophony, and students were beginning to board more quickly. Mabel strode down the length of the train, glancing into compartments as she passed. Some had trunks stowed in the overhead racks, indicating they'd been claimed, but the owners were elsewhere rounding up friends or consoling their weeping mothers. In the fourth car down Mabel shouldered her way past two younger Gryffindor boys taking up too much room in the hall. They muttered angrily at her back, glaring at her green tie, but didn't dare confront a fifth-year Slytherin. She smirked.

After clearing two more cars, the train was becoming crowded. Mabel was finally old enough to be one of the students doing more of the necessary shoving and less of the being shoved, which she relished. The drawback was that all the boys she spotted in her year seemed to have shot up at least a foot over the summer and were creeping past her in height, which made them seem less like boys and more like men - an uncomfortable thought. She shook it off, rolling her eyes as she spotted one such specimen wiping a booger surreptitiously on his friends' robes, and decided it would be a while yet before her year mates could be considered anything other than absolute children.

"Mabel! How was your summer?"

Mabel groaned and turned. Astoria Greengrass, vapid blonde with an over-inflated sense of self-importance and too much money, stood behind Mabel, smiling brightly.

"Perfect," Mabel replied tartly. Her eyes caught on a gleam on Astoria's robes, and she barely withheld her groan. "Congratulations on making prefect."

Astoria beamed, and twirled a lock of hair around her finger. "Why, that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me. Are your etiquette classes finally paying off?"

Mabel forced a smile and batted her eyelashes. "Oh, no, my father decided those were a lost cause after I smashed a tray of petit fours over my instructor's head. I could show you how at the welcoming feast. Stories are always so much better when they're reenacted."

Astoria dropped her smile and sniffed. "I see I shouldn't have gotten my hopes up."

Mabel lost her own false cheer and replied in a flat tone. "Congratulations, Astoria dear, you're learning - though everyone else mastered this lesson years ago, so don't pat yourself on the back just yet."

Astoria squeaked with injured dignity, but Mabel was already moving away again, internally seething. Of all the people to be made prefect, had it really had to be her? As if Mabel wasn't already enough of a pariah in Slytherin, now she was going to be losing points every time she so much as breathed!

She almost walked straight past the compartment she was looking for and had to double back to it. Her eyes widened, taking in the shaggy-haired boy managing to look as crunched up as a discarded candy wrapper in the corner, his face so deep in a book that it was almost invisible. He'd grown. A lot.

Astoria Greengrass temporarily forgotten, Mabel shoved open the door with a bang.

"You need new glasses."

Clem jumped halfway out of his seat, the book tumbled out of his hands to land in a heap on the floor, and the insufficient glasses fell off of one ear. He looked so utterly ridiculous - his eyes wide with shock, his wire-rimmed glasses sitting diagonally over his lips, and his mousy hair an uncut bedhead mess - that Mabel burst out laughing.

"Don't do that," Clem whined, glaring petulantly as he hoisted his loose glasses back onto his nose. He had to hold them in place with a finger while he leaned down to scoop up his book, which he examined critically. "Look, you bent the pages!"

Grinning and still snickering, Mabel tossed herself into the seat next to Clem and bumped his elbow teasingly.

"You missed me," she wheedled.

"My books didn't," he grumbled, which Mabel noted was not a denial. She sighed happily while he finished smoothing out the creased pages in his book, and when his eyes finally lifted to meet hers, she shot him such a bright smile that he was forced to smile back.

"Hi," Mabel said, grinning.

Any lingering grouchiness over the book faded at that, and Clem broke out into a grin of his own. He pulled her into a one-armed hug, and she only pulled a little bit of a face at his sappiness.

"I missed you, Mabel."

"Knew it." Mabel covered up her sigh of relief when he let her go to stick out his tongue, and she stuck hers out right back. They both laughed at their childishness before Mabel realized he'd evaded her question.

"Seriously, though, Clem," she said, nudging him again, "you need new glasses if you have to lean so close to read. And they're barely hanging on to your head."

Clem's attitude instantly soured again, and he pulled his book to his chest like a shield. "Try telling that to Miss Burnon."

"Is that the new dictator?"

"You got it," he replied glumly. They hadn't spoken since school let out last year, because Clem - Clementine, actually, but who had the time to pronounce that many syllables - lived with an ever-changing variety of muggles that couldn't safely be exposed to magical things like post owls. Every summer there was someone new responsible for keeping him fed and clothed, usually along with a few other kids who might have been there for years or just a few weeks. Clem himself sometimes went to several different homes over the summer holidays. Last year, there'd been four. This summer, it sounded as if there'd been just the one.

"I wasn't even sure how many boyfriends she had," Clem complained, scuffing his worn trainers against the carpet. He'd grown over the summer, just like their other classmates, and now it seemed that his legs sprawled, spider-like, across the entire compartment. His shoulders were still too narrow and hunched to match with the rest of him. "I saw at least three, and one night two of them were in the house at the same time. I have no idea if they knew each other was there or not, or … " he shuddered, feigning gagging, and obviously tried to push his speculations aside. "Anyway, she said that because of my growth spurt there wasn't enough money left to get new glasses too."

Mabel scoffed.

"Never mind that Benny and Milo ate three times each as much as I did, and we only bought the clothes at a thrift shop." Clem's eyes darted to Mabel, searching for her reaction.

Mabel eyed his too-short jeans, dirty trainers, and faded tee shirt, and decided that Miss Burnon had definitely had money left over for glasses.

"Burnon is full of it," she said decisively. "Sprout took you shopping for your school robes as usual, didn't she? Go ahead and change so you're wearing something decent."

Clem nodded quickly, cheeks flushed, and stood to retrieve his robes from the trunk above their heads on the rack. Mabel scowled; eyes running up and down his height, and then stood up to confirm that yes, he was tall enough that her eyes were level with his shoulders now.

"Boys," she groused, sitting back down sullenly.

Clem looked at her with confusion, but she waved him away. He left for the washroom without further question.

As soon as he was gone, Mabel's thoughts snapped back to her earlier ruminations like a released rubberband.

She needed a plan. Some way to protect herself, or else a way to run away without losing her education and having to live on the streets. She had a reprieve, for now, that was true - but the school months would pass quickly, and when summer came back she needed to be prepared.

She was still thinking on it when Clem returned, wearing yellow-trimmed robes that - thank Merlin - fit his ungainly body. She frowned once again at his new height. It wasn't fair.

"Er… is something bothering you?" Clem looked at her nervously as he put his shabby muggle clothes away in his trunk.

"Just the fact that you're taller than me now," Mabel replied instantly, and Clem, bless him, actually flinched. The poor boy was far too easy to spook.

He sat down, wedging himself into the corner of the bench seat again, and she jabbed a sharp elbow into his side. He flinched again; she rolled her eyes.

"I'm kidding, Clem. It's annoying, but it isn't your fault, is it?"

"Er…"

"It's not." She was exasperated that it seemed he genuinely didn't know the answer.

He only blinked owlishly at her. "Er… okay."

She huffed at him, but let it go after a moment.

"I'm locking the door." Mabel mentally went through her extensive list of low-power, unanchored warding spells and locking charms while she pulled her wand from its holster on her forearm. You could say what you wanted about her horrible family, but the Orpingtons wouldn't allow even their bastard daughter to go about with her wand sticking out of her back pocket like a clueless muggleborn.

Despite her best efforts, some of that pureblood snobbery must have worn off on her. Her first ever Christmas gift for Clem had been a holster, accompanied by a note threatening that if she saw his wand in his back pocket again, it was liable to go missing for a good while until he got the point.

"Er," Clem said, eyes on her as she began smothering the door with locking charms and jinxes.

"Spit it out," Mabel said in between casting.

"Shouldn't we let other people in? You know, because there's just the two of us in here, and there usually isn't a lot of extra room…"

"Do you feel like spending a few hours with insufferable prats?" Mabel shot back. Clem didn't respond, so she cast her final spell: a jinxed ward that would send anyone who tried to force their way past the other spells flying backward a good dozen feet.

"They aren't all that bad," Clem mumbled.

Mabel holstered her wand and sat back down, smirking victoriously at the strong spellwork now coating the door. "Come on, Clem, you know the odds are against getting good company." Clem grunted in noncommittal agreement, and she continued. "Besides, I already had to deal with perfect prefect Greengrass once today, and I really don't want to see her annoyingly pretty face again until I absolutely have to."

Clem nodded, so Mabel moved on to more important things.

"Now, put the books away! You can do your homework later. I haven't had anyone to play gobstones with in months!"

Clem groaned. "Are you sure it can't be something less… smelly? There are plenty of options. Chess… solitaire… even I-Spy-With-My-Little-Eye…? when you think about it, any game but gobstones would fit the requirement…"

Mabel scoffed.

As if.


"Scourgify. Come on, scourgify!"

The Express was pulling into Hogsmeade station now, and though the green goop from gobstones was no longer visible on Clem's robes, the smell still lingered. He knew the game had been a bad idea - he always lost against Mabel - but he'd let her sweet-talk him into it, again.

The little smirk she had as she watched him frantically try to clean himself up wasn't helping matters.

"Scourgify!" he tried again, to no avail. "Come on, Mabel, don't you know something to help?"

"Maaaaaybe," she drawled. Her own robes were spotless. They'd probably been bought with built-in stain-repelling charms.

"Mabel," he begged, giving her his best pleading look.

"Aw, fine," she said, drawing her wand. "Increbesco."

A draft of cool air fluffed Clem's unruly hair and ruffled his robes. The stink that had set into the robes lessened considerably; in fact, Clem could barely catch even a whiff of it until he lifted his robes directly to his nose and inhaled.

"One more time?" he pleaded.

Mabel rolled her eyes but complied with a smirk. She liked being needed. Clem liked his robes to be stink-free. It was a win-win, really.

His robes were restored to their prior cleanliness, and Mabel slid her wand back into its place against her arm.

"Thank you," Clem said sincerely.

Mabel got the same uncomfortable look on her face that she always did when confronted with affection, so he moved on.

"Will you teach me that spell? With the number of times you beat me at that stupid game I need it."

"Sure," she said, her easy smirk returning. "I'll take pity on you."

Clem smiled at her, but her eyes were losing focus. They'd been doing that a lot over the course of the train ride, even though they'd played her favorite game for hours and exchanged complaints about their summers and shared hopes for the new school year. She was good at covering up her feelings, laughing and teasing and snarking with just as much wicked humor as she usually did, but every time silence fell she got that look.

"Er, Mabel? What's wrong?" Clem asked.

She blinked, and the expression was gone, her usual arrogant smirk taking its place. "Just thinking about how unbearable Astoria is going to be," she deflected.

Clem hummed in sympathy and allowed Mabel to think that was the end of it. She really should realize that Clem knew her better than that at this point, but for now, he let it go. She clearly didn't want to talk about whatever it was, so he'd wait and see if she was better tomorrow.

Several things could be bothering her, he reasoned. It could just be nerves about starting their O.W.L. year. (He doubted it; Mabel had never been one to fret over grades and had openly scoffed at the Ravenclaws' annual month of caffeine-aided, exams-induced cramming ever since first year.)

Maybe she had a crush and was embarrassed to share it? (Unlikely. When she'd had a crush on poor Perry Burke two years ago she'd written him love notes and publicly hand-delivered them, complete with cookies nicked from the kitchens, to the Hufflepuff table weekly until he'd been forced to agree to a single, catastrophic date).

Or… maybe she was telling the truth? (That was practically impossible. Mabel, admit to having emotions? Besides, her frustration inevitably bubbled out, verbose; it didn't stay trapped behind glazed eyes and a vacant expression.)

Who was Clem kidding? Mabel was lying and, as usual, she thought she was getting away with it. But that was fine.

Really.

She'd tell him when she was ready. (She wouldn't.)

Clem put on a smile and distracted her from whatever it was with guesses about the new DADA professor and Harry Potter's Problem-of-the-Year. It was enough to keep her making sarcastic jokes and snickering until they parted ways in the Great Hall for the welcome feast, promising to meet up the first chance they had the next day.

Mabel joined the snakes, whose table rippled with shared smirks and carefully modulated laughter. Expression at that table was as subtle as the flickering of the silver on their robes - fascinating to watch, but almost impossible to catch.

Clem, meanwhile, hesitantly pushed his way into a sea of black and yellow. The Hufflepuffs were buzzing with restrained excitement at the commencement of the school year and congregated in large groups that blocked the walkways to either side of the table. Ravenclaws rolled their eyes as they made their way past in smaller groups of two and three, while the Gryffindors pushed their way through indiscriminately, laughing loudly with friends.

Clem managed to find his way to a seat next to Perry Burke and Neil Parson, the two boys he shared a dorm with. On the other side, though, was Ernie MacMillan, a sixth-year Clem wished he could avoid. He'd given up on avoiding the older boy last year, when Ernie's voice had deepened and become loud enough to make sure every corner of the common room could hear his many opinions. Clem sincerely hoped no one was ever stupid enough to teach MacMillan the sonorous charm.

Clem flashed his roommates a smile, and was just about to ask how their summers had been, when, from next to him, MacMillan boomed:

"Yes, well, that's what I said from the start, wasn't it? Bad news, she was, right from the beginning, that Umbridge."

Ernie's year mates, seated around him, were humoring him with inconclusive hums and smiles edged in barely-detectable sarcasm. Susan Bones, however, well-known to be made of the same hard-edged stuff that had caused her Aunt to rise to the head of the DMLE, outright rolled her eyes.

"We all know that's not what you said last year, Ernie, so shut it."

The boy flushed red but didn't retort, and the sixth-years all went quiet. It was uncharacteristic, but then, there was something even harder about Susan than usual. Her eyes were as sharp as glass and her spine just as rigid, but it seemed a fragile sort of strength, like just a bit of pressure would cause it to shatter.

Clem looked to his right, to Perry, who just shook his head slightly to say 'not here.'

"How was your summer, Clem?" Neil asked.

"The usual," Clem muttered. "Yours?"

Across from the boys, the girls in their year shuffled into their seats, already chattering about the O.W.L. curriculum. Misha Jigger - whose father was the proprietor of Slug & Jigger's Apothecary and whose granduncle was Arsenius Jigger, the author of the Hogwarts text Magical Drafts and Potions - seemed to have memorized the O.W.L. Potions curriculum already. Grace Jorkins, whose aunt Bertha had been murdered by You-Know-Who two years ago, seemed determined to bring the conversation back around to Defense and her fervent hopes that for once, they'd have a teacher competent enough to "keep them all from getting slaughtered." Amanda Hotchkins, a muggleborn, stayed quiet, seemingly scared to interject an opinion of her own.

Clem shot her a smile - he understood staying quiet. Her honey eyes lit up in response.

The hall settled as the Sorting began, a little gaggle of first-year students waddling down the center aisle with wide eyes and gaping mouths. McGonagall led them, as usual, twice their height in her strictly pointed hat.

Clem's eyes drifted to the Slytherin table while names were read out and houses called. He found Mabel almost instantly, seated with her back to the wall behind her. Even though she was surrounded by other students, there was a subtle space left around her, like a buffer-zone, or a no-mans-land. She sat as straight as McGonagall's hat, posture perfect and, to a casual observer, eyes attentive to the Sorting. She did not participate in the ripples of whispers that made their way up and down her table as new students were called; in fact, the others spoke around her as if the space she occupied were a void.

The headmaster stood up as the Sorting concluded, and fresh whispers raced around the hall. The legendary wizard's hand was black and withered. Dead.

"What's that about?" Amanda whispered from across the table.

He didn't answer, too surprised by the installment of a new Potions professor and Snape's shift to DADA to wonder about a magical old man's probably-magical illness.

His attention was diverted again as the doors to the Great Hall squeaked open, and Harry Potter came through, blood dripping from his nose and spattered on the front of his robes. His eyes were flashing and mutinous, his shoulders scrunched up in defensive anger.

The murmur of conversation paused, took him in, and then surged up in a fresh wave of noise.

"Not already," Megan Jones, another sixth-year, groaned. "Can't he give us one day?"

The local celebrity slipped into a seat between his ever-present friends and seemed to snap something at them as Granger lifted her wand to fuss over him.

Clem turned back to his own table with a soft groan.

"Just one day of normalcy, that's all I'm asking," Megan was still saying, stabbing at a collection of boiled potatoes on her plate.

"We can't just ignore the war," Susan snapped at the other girl.

Megan opened her mouth, seemed to reconsider whatever it was she was about to say, and shut it again.

"So it's escalated to outright war over the summer?" Justin Finch-Fletchley asked, leaning forward over his plate.

Susan met his eyes, frowning, lip suddenly trembling. Everyone else around them seemed to hold their breath, until -

Susan collapsed over her plate, sobbing.

Clem could only stare in confusion as Hannah Abbott and Megan Jones swooped upon her, armed with firm hugs, gentle back rubs, and wordless coos of comfort. Justin Finch-Fletchley looked on in confused embarrassment, Wayne Hopkins whispered in the first boy's ear, and Ernie glared as if the entire thing was Justin's fault.

A moment later, Justin's face drained of color.

"I'm so sorry Susan, I didn't know - no Prophet over the summer, you know - "

Susan sobbed louder, which made the two other girls glare at Justin as well.

"That's…I'm sorry, Susan, I know you were close. My sincerest condolences," Justin murmured, eyes downcast, and Clem felt the words like a punch to his gut. Condolences? Wasn't that what you said when someone -

"I can't believe she's gone," Susan choked out between her sobs. "Just like… just like that… in her own home, where she should have been safe."

- when someone had died.

The pieces clicked together, and Clem felt his own expression slacken with the realization that the "war" must have indeed escalated, and someone Susan knew had been caught in the conflict.

Megan and Hannah rushed Susan out of the Great Hall, presumably to allow the distraught girl to compose herself in private. Clem looked at Ernie, the one person he knew he could count on to answer, and asked.

"I'm sorry… I don't get the Prophet either… did her parents die?"

"Her aunt," Ernie replied, utterly grim. "Head of the DMLE, you know. According to the Prophet, the Ministry reckoned that You-Know-Who did it himself. She was a hell of a witch. Probably why You-Know-Who singled her out like that to begin with."

Clem's mouth was dry. While he had been wasting away at Miss Burnon's over the summer, it had been easy to forget about the war brewing in the world he'd become a part of. To think, he'd been grousing over secondhand clothes and the other foster boys stealing his dinner while poor Susan had had her family murdered by a dark lord.

"I'm sorry," Clem murmured.

"Ugh, I feel awful – I really put my foot in it," Justin said with a grimace. Even embarrassed, he sat with perfect posture and held his fork with the precision of a wand. If it wasn't for his muggle surname, he would have fit right in at the Slytherin table full of juvenile aristocrats. "I didn't get a subscription to the Prophet because, well, it's usually so biased as to be nearly useless, isn't it? After all those lies last year, about Harry - "

Harry. At some point last year, the sixth-years had gotten on a first-name basis with Potter. Perhaps it was stranger that it had taken them that long, since they often shared classes with the Gryffindor. It was still strange to hear such a simple name and know they were referring to someone who was regularly plastered in the newspapers.

Clem's year mates cautiously struck up their own conversations again, carefully avoiding the topic of war. There would come a time, later, when Perry would fill Neil and Clem in about wizarding news and Amanda would be briefed by the other girls, but for now, they all seemed to want to forget about the rising conflicts outside Hogwarts' walls. Grace was loudly espousing her faith in Snape as a competent DADA professor, while Misha eyed up Slughorn, trying to discern his failings as a potioneer before they'd even had a class with him.

Clem picked at his food, nodding idly at the right times when someone near him said something particularly emphatic. His eyes were back at the Slytherin table, searching among their flickering expressions and subtle shifts in posture for the ones that had been paying a bit too much attention to Susan's breakdown.

He'd gone looking too late, though. His own table was making an effort to go back to normal; the house of cunning had probably concealed any tells far sooner. How were they to know who was who in this war? Even Perry's grand-uncle owned a shop in Knockturn, which Perry had admitted meant he frequently dealt with the shady types. Clem felt so out of the loop. Lines had been drawn, but with an invisible ink he couldn't see.

Draco Malfoy was a few seats down from Mabel, appearing unusually subdued between his two troll-like friends. His father had been arrested at the end of the previous year and sentenced as a Death Eater. How many of those sitting around him had family members on the other side? What about in Clem's year? Was Mabel rooming with girls whose families were working for You-Know-Who?

Despair clutched at Clem's heart as he looked towards Mabel again. She was eating with snappish efficiency, gaze focused on her food, scornful eyebrow preemptively raised just in case someone decided to acknowledge her existence. Her family were purebloods, even though she was a half-blood… was this what had been bothering her on the train? Had the Orpingtons decided which side of the line they were standing on? Were they pressuring her?

Clem felt like smacking himself. He should have known, but he'd been so relieved to get away from the muggle world that he'd forgotten the magical world was at war, and his best friend didn't have the luxury of escaping to non-magical obscurity for a few months to forget about it.

He'd talk to her, the next chance he got.


Transfiguration class gave Mabel a solution.

"Today we shall begin work on Vanishing spells," McGonagall said after taking roll. "They are easier than N.E.W.T. level Conjuring spells, but are still among the most difficult magic you will be tested for on the O.W.L."

Mabel was attempting to pay attention, so she scribbled "Vanishing - O.W.L." at the top of her parchment and underlined it twice. McGonagall continued in her lecture on the theory of vanishing objects, and Mabel managed another note or two, but she found her attention wandering. O.W.L.'s still seemed far away, but her other problems felt pressing. She couldn't convince herself to focus on academic achievement when she had that to deal with.

If only she could… vanish herself, or something, but no - the closest thing to that was apparition, which she couldn't get licensed for until she was seventeen, and besides, running away wasn't going to get her very far - not until she was of age. She needed… a way to hide, maybe, or else a way to keep others away from herself…

Her quill ticked over her parchment idly, making a little railroad as her thoughts chugged along. She ruminated over what she knew of wards and the theory of notice-me-not charms, but that avenue still had the same setback she kept coming up against: an old magical house obeyed the will of the house's head. No spells she laid down on her room could keep her father out, and he most certainly wouldn't approve of attempts to barricade herself away from their perfectly respectable summer guests. The irony of imposing his perfect standards on her, when she would never measure up thanks to her mother, seemed lost on him.

What was the point of being a disgrace, she thought, if she wasn't allowed to do that properly?

"A bird's-eye-view would be very helpful for me and my father's hunt for blimblelumps."

Mable startled back to attention at the utterly out-of-place comment. It was Loony Lovegood, completely off-topic, as usual. She'd raised her hand politely, but Mabel couldn't fathom what the purpose of the interruption had actually been. Nonsense, that's what it was.

"If you are referring to human transfiguration, Ms. Lovegood, that is a topic that you may study if you progress to N.E.W.T. level courses, but will not be covered this year," McGonagall said. "Are there any other questions?"

Hm.

Mabel blinked.

That was an idea.

Mabel pushed her hand into the air.

"Yes, Ms. Estes?"

"Will the animagus transformation be covered in N.E.W.T. levels as well?"

McGonagall raised her eyebrow. "That is a very complex form of human transfiguration quite outside the realm of Hogwarts' education," she said. "If you wish to become an animagus, I would suggest pursuing a Transfiguration Mastery after graduation. Achieving an animagus transformation takes a great deal of skill in human transfiguration, as well as mental discipline and meticulous attention to detail. The consequences of doing it wrong are often disabling and permanent, which is why it is not covered at Hogwarts."

Mabel nodded absently, and the class continued as McGonagall launched into her explanations of their first vanishing spell practicals. Mabel did manage to make herself focus on the task at hand, which was vanishing a single-substance inanimate object in its entirety. McGonagall handed out wooden buttons for the exercise. Mabel's was gone fifteen minutes later - the first to softly pop out of existence in the room.

"Five points to Slytherin, Ms. Estes."

Animagi. Hm.


Clem chewed the tip of his quill as he looked over the pages of notes and texts spread out before him. Having to hide magic from his foster family all summer meant he couldn't get his homework done, and he had a special allowance from the Deputy Headmistress to turn it all in at the end of September. Still, it was better to get the lot done in the first week back at school, before the professors had a chance to get beyond reviews and introductory materials and the homework really began piling up.

This is why Clem was sequestered in the library on the first day of classes, obscured by the history stacks, paging through books that smelled of dust and sorting through archives of statistics and economic reports that could probably put the energetic Colin Creevey to sleep. Clem had almost gathered enough information to finish Binns' summer essay, and if he kept up this pace, he could probably have the essay done before bedtime.

He wasn't too hopeful in that regard, though. The last class period of the day had let out a few minutes ago, and he fully expected Mabel to come and ruin his productivity any minute now.

Better review while he could so he could take his notes back to the common room after dinner. He tapped his nose with his quill, then jumped at the cold touch of the damp tip. Served him right for chewing on it, he thought absently, scanning his notes. He definitely had enough on the goblin rebellion of 1436 and its impact on the restriction of wands, and likewise had sufficiently covered the 1502 rebellion and its impact on the decrease in popularity of magical weapons in duels. However, it really wouldn't hurt to collect more statistics on the economical shifts following the 1787 and 1812 rebellions, as well, but he'd need -

"No one should look that focused this early in the term."

Mabel tossed her bag loudly onto the table, disturbing his neat stacks of parchment, and threw herself into a creaky chair opposite Clem. He grinned.

"I'm doing my summer homework," he explained, though he knew that she knew this already. She rolled her eyes, and he looked back down at his work, chewing his lip.

"What are you working on?"

"Binns' essay." Clem only needed a little bit more. It would be interesting to find statistics on the trends in magical jewelry production in the 1790s, following the 1787 rebellion. The goblins had become far less willing to trade with wizards after that, so wizards had probably begun producing more of their own metalwork to compensate. Weapons such as swords had already gone out of style, but there had likely been a high demand for jewelry still -

"Ask me what I'm doing."

Clem bit his lip, desperately trying to hang onto his train of thought even as he absently responded to his friend.

"What are you doing here?" He reached for a stack of parchments that he was certain had held the production reports he'd pulled out and began shuffling through them, scanning the dates.

"Not killing myself researching the goblin rebellions," Mabel scoffed.

Clem hesitated, looking up from the rows of dates and figures written in a tiny hand. "They're… well, sort of…"

She glared at him, and he swallowed.

"I think they're…maybe…"

"Don't you dare say 'interesting.'"

Clem shut his mouth.

"You're hopeless," Mabel complained.

"They aren't that bad," Clem defended, skimming his eyes over his notes as if that would help him understand the unanimous hatred displayed by the rest of the students for the topic of goblin rebellions.

"Yes, they are," Mabel said. "Anyway, put that stuff away for now -"

Clem opened his mouth to protest, but she kept going.

"You've got a whole month to finish it, and knowing you, it's probably done twice-over already. I've got a new project for us to work on instead."

Oh no. It was the first day of classes! Who on earth had pissed Mabel off this quickly?

That reminded him, though, that he had his own topic he'd wanted to bring up with her.

"Actually, I wanted to talk to you too," Clem said hesitantly, setting aside the report he'd been reading. With any luck, this conversation would be genuine enough to distract her from whatever warpath she'd set out on so soon in the term.

Mabel frowned and blew a strand of wavy dark hair away from her nose. "About what?"

"I just, I've been hearing about what's been going on over the summer - "

Something in her sharpened to attention at that. "About what?" she asked, too quickly.

"You know," he said, waving a hand vaguely, uncomfortably. If her family had taken the other side…

Drat, how was he supposed to talk about this? It had seemed such a simple idea before.

"I don't," she snapped in response.

Clem flinched back against his chair.

"Look, if your family is pressuring you - "

A deep frown crossed her face. "They're always pressuring me. Get to the point, Clem, I've got more important things to talk about."

"The war," he blurted.

Oddly, she relaxed.

"Oh," she laughed. "That's what this is? The mandatory you're-in-Slytherin-with-a-lot-of-shady-people-are-you-okay-Mabel-talk?"

Clem blinked at her. "Er, I guess? I just, I never even asked yesterday, and I started hearing things last night, and your family is… you know…"

She rolled her eyes. "They're still stuck in neutral, don't worry. Dear Papa is hedging his bets just like his father did before him and his father did before him in the great legacy of spinelessness left by generations of Orpingtons past. We're too minor for Lord Scaryface to bother with so long as we don't parade down Diagon juggling lemon sherbets and wearing hot pink robes. Don't worry about all that rot, okay?"

"Rot? Mabel, it's war - "

"And neither one of us has to be involved," she said staunchly. "If Dumbledore wins, great, if he doesn't, we run away to the mainland, right? We talked about this last year."

Clem frowned, hesitant. "I know, I'm just worried about you."

"Don't be." Mabel flashed a brilliant smile, one he knew was entirely fake. "Now that that's over, I want to tell you about my idea."

Clem thunked his head against the table, accepting defeat, and mumbled, "What happened?"

He tried to put war out of his mind and wondered if he'd have to talk Mabel down from slipping botched boil-cure into Astoria Greengrass's morning tea again. The girl would have been in the hospital wing with boils lacing her larynx and stomach! No one deserved that, no matter how annoying.

"Don't be like that," Mabel wheedled. "You'll love it. Lots of complicated theory, attention to detail, and it's multidisciplinary."

Oh, it was a really bad idea, then, like the time she'd decided to try creating a new dorm room out of a supply closet using interior construction spells. She'd blasted a new entrance into Filch's private quarters instead.

Then there was the time she'd charmed Colin Creevey's camera to cover him in rancid flobberworm slime every time he tried to take a photo.

And, at the end of last year, she'd taken samples from the Weasley Terror Twins' portable swamp and tried to repurpose it into a potion to give Astoria Greengrass permanent swamp breath. (Clem was actually a bit proud of the work he'd put in for that - the results hadn't been permanent, but Greengrass had refused to open her mouth near anyone for a week in case she started belching thick green clouds that smelled like rotten eggs).

"It does take a few months to finish, though, so we need to start now," Mabel was saying.

"Mabel, we really shouldn't be getting into trouble this quickly, or, you know, at all, but I lost that argument years ago…"

"Is that why you're being so whiny? This isn't trouble," Mabel said. "It's purely academic."

Clem frowned, searching Mabel's face for a sign that she was lying. "You're… er… not starting a vendetta against Greengrass?"

"I thought I'd give you a week before I started that up," she responded promptly.

Small mercies, then.

"…Or anyone else?"

"I'll even pinky-swear it."

"Alright," Clem conceded. He began separating the texts he'd need to check out from the ones he was finished with, since it looked like he wouldn't be getting anything else done before dinner. He still had a sneaking suspicion he was going to be having an anxiety attack over whatever this was, but if it was just academic, then what was the real harm?

"What's this idea, then?"

Mabel grinned as if it were Christmas morning. It was a sharp expression, but genuine. Clem had only ever seen her use it around him, and despite the certainty that he was about to regret agreeing to her latest convoluted plan, he couldn't help the glow of warm pride he felt knowing that she only relaxed like this for him.

That warm glow spluttered and died at her next words.

"We're going to become animagi!"