"Dust you are and to dust you shall return."

The tiny specks of dust floated in the abyss of the great room. They danced a kamikaze dance around the cold, lighted floor. They flew from here to there calmly and managed by the breeze, and our breathing. Yes, the dust floated between us; It made us cough and blink annoyed, but it was hardly anything compared to the situation that we had lived in the great Hogwarts castle. Tragic death at sunset on an unexpected day, tragic morning of mourning, tragic farewell...

We gaze at Dumbledore behind the curtain of morning light. He spoke devastated and aged. His gaze was dry and cold, as cold and sad as our own. I didn't know how to feel at a time like this. I hadn't really known Alice, and more than once she passed me by her friends. But last time she was nice to me and I felt bad for her.

―Can you remember when was the last time you saw her?

Sarah Harris was looking somberly at her roommate, Vanessa Cooper. The latter looked absently at Dumbledore as he spoke to all of us. She seemed to be watching the dust motes dance for her.

―I don't remember, Sarah. ―she answered almost in a whisper.

―I do remember. It was yesterday morning, she was gorgeous in her blue skirt. That color suits her very well.

Sarah's face lacked human warmth and her eyes were dull. I had never seen them so sad. In their seated places my companions had nothing to express on their haggard faces.

Some Slytherin boys were more serious than others, and I even think looking around us, more than one Gryffindor was missing. I guess it was not a pleasant mass for them, but for me that lack was not fair. It was about a person, a good girl who perhaps made more than one mistake when judging others...

I couldn't deny that a Gryffindor was hiding inside me. A fair and brave person. My hatred had subsided seeing so much sadness in the castle, so many sad faces, but I knew that soon it would call me again in search of revenge.

―Elinor. ―Sarah called me softly. ―Would you like to come to the three broomsticks with us later?

I was a little surprised that she asked me that and I guess my face conveyed that feeling of strangeness, because my face always reflected what I thought.

But I had to answer and given what had happened, I didn't think it was a bad idea to accompany the group of Slytherin girls, we would all be safer together.

―Sure Sarah, see you there later. ―I smiled slightly.

After the mass for Alice, the groups and other people who were there filed out of the door of the great hall in an orderly manner. Sarah Harris and her friends headed out the door to go straight to the small village of Hogsmeade. A very peaceful place, where my favorite place was ''The Three Broomsticks''. I was going to meet them shortly, first I had to look over Saint Meh's essay a bit more. I went out to the great gardens of Hogwarts where I looked for a solitary place and to be able to look at the book more calmly. Hogwarts Gardens were a place covered with fresh grass at the mercy of the wind, there were bushes on both sides of the path and flowers in the stone beds. The huge meadow downhill to the black side seemed perfect for me to be alone with myself. So I sat looking at the beautiful panoramic scenery of the black lake, and opened the book to a random page. I explored his texts for some time, carefully reading anything that might be of help to me or my sister Isobel.

Then turning the pages I found that the book was an extensive bibliography of this Michelle... That woman made me sick, but suddenly I did find something that was going to help me. An amulet against Saint Meh, an object that repelled him.

Amulet against Saint Meh

To make the amulet against the demon of Saint Meh you need this list of ingredients:

-Ten dead cockroaches

-Dried Nettles

-Two oleander flowers

-Water from a lake

The preparation is very simple and effective, just follow these steps:

Boil ten dead cockroaches in a cauldron preheated with lake water. After six minutes add the dried nettles and then the petals of the oleander flowers. Be careful with the flowers, their toxin is dangerous for the organism.

After fifteen minutes take your wand and recite the spell:

''Saint Meh, I repel you''

The resulting liquid will be green if you did it right. It should be strained and kept in a small bottle that will hang around your neck to protect yourself from the devil.

I closed the book, I remained thoughtful. Where the hell was I going to get dead cockroaches? Gross! I hated cockroaches to death, they were the worst insect on earth. Also among the ingredients were nettles and oleander flowers... The lake water was not a problem, I had a wonderful one in front of me. But the cockroaches... yuck!

I got up absentmindedly from the grass, staring at the wide lake that stretched as far as the eye could see. I thought about the ingredients and where I could find them, but I was blank. The cool, morning air made my thoughts go numb, making me unable to reason clearly.

Izzie, I already have two life preservers for you sister.

Hogsmeade

Tavern ''The three broomsticks''

The people who entered and left, the smoke and the absence of silence made ''The Three Broomsticks'' a cozy and full of life tavern. They served the best butterbeer you could imagine and of course the best company ever dear. But today was very different from other days, it seemed that the sadness of the great dining room had reached the small village and had embraced it with her sad mantle. The people who were in the tavern spoke in very low voices, observing their glasses with mead and the sad face that was reflected in them. Sarah and her friends were sitting at a large table in a very intimate corner at the end of the hall. Heads down they looked at their mugs of butterbeer, definitely today was a disastrous day for all beings that lived around Hogwarts. I walked towards them, hoping that they would let me sit there, at least to be all together.

The girls who were there other than Sarah had also seen them that time when Alice came to warn us of Brenda's attack, almost all of them I knew by sight.

―Elinor! ―Sarah smiled seeing me standing there next to them.

―Can I sit? ―I inquired a little unsure of her welcome.

―Rosenberg? What are you doing here? ―another girl with blue eyes and curly hair asked.

―I invited her, Heather. ―Sarah answered with authority.

The girls from upper classes always asserted themselves before the other girls from lower classes, they were the ones who ruled. Sarah Harris was not as naive and weak as she appeared to be these days, she was ruthless with her enemies and very cunning in class. I always envied her for her high marks in potions, even though I got good marks too. She was highly respected by the others and that's why every Slytherin who wanted to be someone in this school had to be her friend and not her enemy.

They all looked at each other waiting for Sarah to invite me to sit next to her. I recognized one of them by her golden eyes, I think her name was Grace. And the blue-eyed girl, Heather, sat next to her. They would be from the same course; They looked at me throwing rays of hatred at me, if looks could kill...

―Sit down, Elinor, next to me. ―she said smiling.

I think Sarah felt bad about me after what had happened with Alice. She understood now that we all had to stick together if we wanted to stay alive. Although the girls were still looking at me with some suspicion, waiting for some suspicious movement to give me away. After a while of awkward silence they began to talk, Sarah asked me for a butterbeer and from sip to sip I listened to her opinions with great attention. Over the hour the conversation reached a dead end...

―Dumbledore has said we're leaving Saturday morning, Kate. Tomorrow Friday we will pack to return home the next day. ―Sarah was saying.

Across the table a girl my age was nodding without looking at her. She must have been in the seventh grade. Her hair was dark brown as her eyes were brown, she was wearing a dark shirt accompanied by a gray jacket. Her companion was also the same age as her, she had very long hair of a color that I couldn't tell if it was blonde or brown, and her eyes were cobalt blue. Although what most caught my attention about the second young woman was her upturned nose. She was wearing a flowy grayish black t-shirt and a knee length black skirt, her glasses giving her look an intellectual touch.

―I don't get it, being Dumbledore a great wizard, how does he let something like that happen? ―Grace said sulkily.

Little Grace would have been about fourteen years old and had very little patience. Her blond ringlets jumped in all directions every time she nervously moved her doll head. Together with her hair, two golden pearls shone on her face, which looked angrily at some part of the ceiling waiting for a response from one of us.

―It's not his fault, Grace! I'm sure he's bending over backwards to catch Alice's killers. ―Sarah said, annoyed. Gisselle looked at Sarah despising her words, I don't think she liked Professor Dumbledore.

―What I don't understand is why she had marks on her chest...

Vanessa had said that thought out loud and for the first time we all thought about it. We hadn't wondered about that, none of us, not even me. We thought for a while, trying to conjecture how those marks had been made, but to no avail. After a long time our jars were empty, there were no new conclusions and it was time to have lunch at the castle.

On the way back, Heather and Grace were ahead of the rest of the group confessing things to each other in low voices, from time to time they would glance at me or maybe the whole group... Behind them Vanessa and Gisselle were talking to two seventh grade girls, I think who were called Fiona Lee and Katherine Berg, yes that is. In total we were eight girls back to the castle.

―Thank you for coming, Elinor. ―Sarah said suddenly.

―It's nothing, I thought we'd all be better together. ―I smiled as much as I could.

After that she didn't say anything again, she calmly thought about her things and I put my crazy head in order. I had all the problems yelling at me at once, asking for an urgent solution. First of all I had to make the amulet of protection, then sneakily give Isobel the potion and then I still don't know how to save the castle. I was grateful for that space of time to think and put my ideas in order, but soon we arrived at the Hogwarts gardens.

Already inside the castle the students came and went from here to there without being in a fixed place. When our eyes met it was as if I saw myself in their sad eyes. Professor McGonagall tried to comfort a Gryffindor girl, while other of her students looked at her desolate. We all knew what awaited us the next day, a farewell and a train for Saturday.

―Sarah I have to... ―I said not knowing what excuse to make.

―I understand, Elinor. ―She said nodding quickly. She knew what I needed because she thought so too.

―Thanks, you can call me Eli. See you later Sarah. ―I said smiling.

I left the group of Slytherin girls and went to the corridor that led to the dungeons. I needed to rest from all this a little and sleep. The corridors to the dungeons were deserted and there was a musty smell coming from the floor.

I was going down the stairs that had caused me so much pain with the wound. Its dark stairs in the first years had caused me a lot of fear, but now they became familiar, even welcoming. This had been where the students from my house had been stalked and kidnapped. I stopped dead and watched. I did not find anything unusual or that I had not seen before. But I did hear something that was not normal to hear on this staircase, it was like a knocking, as if something was colliding but I couldn't see anything, then at the bottom of the stairs, right at my feet, I saw something that left me petrified. A large shadow five feet tall ran down the dark corridor until it disappeared from my sight. It scared me a lot.

That was what I needed to see to turn around and want to run up the stairs, of course it was impossible for me. I collided again with a hard body that made me lose my balance. I fell down the stairs rolling between the steps, and I think when I hit the ground I blacked out before the pain filled my mind.

I was in the dark for a long time. Crushed by her dense and heavy cloak, my mind was unable to be clear and lucid. But I felt everything that brushed against my body.

I was somewhere, where my body rested on something that was quite soft and flat. The air that I breathed was fresh, and in the atmosphere you could taste a particular aroma of bitter spices. It was a very familiar smell but right now my head was not clear, I couldn't place myself. I heard light footsteps around me that glided gracefully across the floor. They surrounded me and went from side to side incessantly. I heard his footsteps from afar and sometimes I heard them close... Suddenly I became aware and knew that I was in a room, and that I was on a bed. My body felt sore from the fall, I couldn't move much but I felt that I would open my eyes shortly.

And so it was, I managed to open my eyelids and glimpse the dark room in which I was lying. There was a fire burning, I noticed the lightning of its flames. The room was completely black, the wood of the bed was dipped in black paint, the canopy fabrics were dressed in black, and even the bed sheets were black. Perhaps I had died and was in the other world; I had never seen this room before. I looked around for Madam Pomfrey and the windows of the infirmary, since she was most likely there and it was already night. But no, that room was smaller than the infirmary room.

I was able to sit up on the bed without difficulty, I saw a black wooden table to one side and a dark bottle on it. Someone had taken great care of me when I fell to the ground unconscious. Undesirably it had been the person least wanted, Professor Snape.

He was looking at me from a corner, he was leaning against the wall. The room was in darkness and I could barely make out anything. But the exasperating look of his I would recognize anywhere. When I got up I felt cold, I was naked. Only my underwear and black sheets covered me. On a nearby chair lay my gloomy clothes from the day, Snape had played doctor with me while I slept. I covered myself even more trying not to expose an inch of skin that he could see. I was so embarrassed that he saw me naked.

―How are you, Elinor? ―he told me, passing his hand over his face, he seemed tired.

―You mean Miss Rosenberg. ―I looked at him listlessly ―Why am I naked!?

―When your unfortunate fall down the stairs occurred, this was the closest place I could take you, Rosenberg. You had several bruises and some scratches on your skin so I chose to heal it myself and not inform Madam Pomfrey so as not to attract attention.

He walked over to the bed and sat in a chair that adjoined the nightstand. As I watched him come with the air of being in his house, I tightened the sheets around my naked body. I didn't want to, but my face reddened in a moment. He was very close to me and that disturbed me enormously. He looked at me silently, observing my body under the covers of him. I knew he was tempted to have me, because I felt it too, but today I couldn't get distracted. Not even a kiss.

―I'm fine now, I want to get dressed and go, professor. I appreciate your help, sir.

I pulled the black sheets from the huge bed and wrapped them around my body. I backed away from Snape and climbed down the other side of the bed, but my clothes were still on his bedroom side. He acted quickly too, getting to his feet, walking back to where I was standing. I was trying to keep the sheets from slipping and leaving me naked before his snake eyes. He got between me and my clothes, cornered me, making me walk backwards and fall back on the soft bed. To his bed.

―What are you doing? I want to go, Professor Snape. ―I said annoyed.

―Do not think that because I have cured you, you are already safe from danger, Elinor.

A cold sweat ran down the back of my neck. Was he implying that he...? No, please, not today. He grabbed the sheet tightly and pulled it, I rolled out of bed, leaving me in my underpants in full view of him. I tried to hide my embarrassment as best I could, but what happened next made the color of my cheeks be that of a real fire. Snape slid his robe cloak to the floor along with the black sheet he had taken from me. He began to undo the buttons on his tunic, which looked more like a frock coat than a tunic.

―B-But what are you doing, sir!? ―I said in a very high pitched voice.

Snape paid me no attention; when he finished unbuttoning he dropped the frock coat to the ground. He stripped off his pristine white shirt, revealing his bare torso before my eyes. Then he slid on all fours across the bed glaring at me. Half-naked he was even more attractive to me. At this point I was in a corner of the bed, covering my entire flat stomach with the pillow. I knew of his intentions with me, but I wasn't ready for this yet. I wanted his end of the deal right then and there and I wanted to avoid it by all means. But it was useless, he grabbed me by the ankle and dragged me to the end of the bed where he waited for me "thirsty".

―Please no, please no... ―I said terrified.

My potions teacher had no qualms about letting his body fall on top of mine, his body was hot. His skin was too pale under his clothes, he had barely seen the sun. But I still continued to resist his wish, it wouldn't be my turn to pay today. He spread my legs, placing his knees on the inside of my thighs so that I couldn't close them. I closed my eyes trying to imagine that I wasn't there, in that embarrassing situation.

He however enjoyed it very much, each lick, each moan, each resistance reaction. His hands slid over my bra, making circular motions and squeezing my pink nipples. While mine were busy pushing him to resist. I was beginning to sweat with excitement, I couldn't help it. I really liked what he did. I looked at him pleadingly; his hair fell in two curtains of black on either side of his face. He looked at me full of pleasure, he panted on my face and from time to time he bit my lip.

―Please Professor Snape, stop it! ―I was trying to escape.

―It's the right time, Rosenberg. ―he said, biting my neck hard.

―No please, give me a few more days, do it for Alice, do it for me, or for Isobel! This is not the time… ―I started to cry.

He looked at me with disgust, and shrugged off me. He got out of bed and picked up his clothes from the floor. He had set me free and naked. My crying had managed to appease his lust. But still I should pay him, in a short time...