Chapter 11

Snape, Potions, and a Surprising Thought

As the three girls, Ginny, Cassie, and Elspeth, descended the stone steps, torches lit and then extinguished again after they passed. Ginny explained briefly, "This is a bit of a shortcut that my brothers pointed out to me my second year. I was always late for potions and getting in all sorts of trouble. I don't think anyone else knows about it, though, which is why it's so dark and musty."

"Oh." Cassie wondered if she meant George and Fred when she said "her brothers" and had decided to ask but then Elspeth spoke up.

"It really helps a lot when we're heading for this class. The rest of the dungeon isn't as dingy as this part, if you're worried about that."

"Only a little bit. I was worried how I was going to be able to see the teacher if it was this dark." The other two girls laughed and then they reached the bottom of the steps and turned into a brighter hall. Torches were lit all along here and there were students scurrying by on their way to different classes. Cassie had two impressions of the dungeons within that first minute. The first was that it smelled really funny down here. The second was that all the torches in the world couldn't really brighten the place up. It was just depressing. Then they stopped in front of an open door and no one had to tell her that this was the classroom. She could hear the buzz of conversation inside. Elspeth stepped in to save them a seat and Ginny pulled Cassie over to the wall.

"Here. Hermione wanted to give this to you earlier, but we were interrupted. I think it's self-explanatory. Plus she put a charm on it. It will stick inside the sleeve of your robe if you want. She said something about it being like a crib sheet. Does that mean something to you?" Ginny then handed Cassie a small card with some cramped writing on it. Cassie took it and hid it in her hand. She knew what a crib sheet was, but she couldn't imagine how one would help her do any magic. They walked inside and there was a sudden and complete hush. Every eye in the room was on her. There weren't a lot of students in the classroom, probably about 15, certainly no more than 20, but Cassie felt like a big neon sign announcing that she was a fraud was right over her head as they stared at her.

Cassie flushed under the scrutiny, but followed Ginny to a rather peculiar looking table toward the front of the classroom. It was a long table, where probably up to four students could sit, although there were only two chairs in front of it now. Elspeth was sitting at the table behind the one they were heading for and grinned when Cassie caught her eye. Cassie noticed as she sat down in the chair that both the tables and chairs in this classroom were very sturdy and heavy looking. The surface of the table was fairly typical for a schoolroom, scarred and worn looking. There were all sorts of burn and scorch marks on this one, though, along with cuts that looked like they had been made by sharp knives. She could understand this, however, as there was an actual cauldron sitting in the middle of the table, looking for all the world like someone actually cooked potions in it. And there were cutting boards built into both ends of the tables. She remembered for a brief second how disgusting some of the potions ingredients sounded and hoped that today would not be an actual potion-cooking day. Maybe it was mostly theory. She could always dream.

Ginny took her wand out of her book bag and Cassie did the same, setting it carefully on the table and hoping that she looked natural with it. She stole a quick glance at the cramped writing on the card that she still held in her hand. She squinted a little. Hermione really thought of everything. The heading on the card read, "Commonly used spell words. If you say these at the appropriate moments, people will be more likely to believe you." She had just glanced at the first word on the list which was "accio - to summon" when the noise level of the classroom which had risen again after she sat down suddenly dropped again. Cassie tucked the card into her pocket and turned to see what had happened now.

Ginny whispered one word to her and Cassie felt a distinct frisson of fear slide down her spine. "Snape." The name, she had to admit, seemed appropriate. The man was thin and tall, and from her vantage point of sitting, he looked to be at least 8 feet tall although he was probably only a few inches over 6. His skin was sallow and his dark hair hung long around his face. But, it was the eyes that really held Cassie's attention. They were dark and looked like they had seen a lot of unpleasant things in this world. His eyes caught hers and she looked away quickly, not wanting to be too bold in the first five minutes of class. There would be time later for trying to decide what else his eyes were saying.

Suddenly, though, she felt him beside her and she glanced over. His robes were black and billowing and she got a really good look at the heavy texture of them as he had stopped right next to her. He spoke, and his voice was as smooth and dark as the rest of him. "Miss Spencer, I presume." She nodded, unsure what was expected of her. She didn't trust her voice at the moment so she just nodded again. "I will tell you immediately that I do not want you in this classroom. I told our Headmaster that I absolutely refuse to have a student I do not even know and whose competence at potions is a complete mystery to me in my advanced potions class. It is an absolute impossibility." Cassie swallowed. Great, she was being thrown out. Maybe it was better that way. But no. "However," he continued, his voice deepening even further in anger, "he has informed me that I have no power to make this decision. You are to be in my class, with your cousin" and if possible this word was infused with even more anger and disdain than the rest of the sentence "for the rest of the year."

Cassie cleared her throat. "Yes, sir."

"Do you think that is fair? These students have worked very hard to earn the privilege of being in my classroom. And yet you waltz in here with not even so much as a recommendation from a previous potions master. How do I know that you won't blow us all up? We work on very difficult and volatile mixtures in the classroom, dangerous even in semi-skilled hands." He paused and Cassie sensed that he was waiting for an answer.

"Perhaps it is not fair, sir, but my mother taught me when I was very small that life is not always fair. You can certainly feel free to grade me as harshly as you wish, but I am looking forward to what I can learn in this class. And I can assure you, sir, that I can perform as well in this class as I can in any of my other subjects." Cassie could have sworn that he growled at her statement. But she just continued. "As for blowing you and my fellow students up, I will certainly make every effort to follow all your safety precautions because I don't really fancy becoming decoration for your walls, either." There was a small smattering of laughter from around the room and she even heard one or two people applauding. She flushed and stared down at the table but then raised her face again to meet his scowling glare.

"I see you are as insufferably conceited as the rest of your family - why they insist on thinking that they even deserve to be called wizards is beyond me, but" he was interrupted by some laughter from the other side of the room and Cassie felt the color rising higher in her cheeks. He wasn't insulting her family, obviously, but she liked the Weasleys and felt that his insulting them in front of an entire classroom was a little over the top. The man continued, his voice sneering "there are some who do not see things quite as clearly as the rest of us and insist on including them as they are a pureblood family. So, I will keep an eye on you, you can be certain of that, and if you are not competent to be in this class I will remove you, no matter who I have to threaten to allow me to do so." There was more laughter from the far side of the room, Cassie could now see who was actually laughing. There were 4-5 students all chuckling at his rude behavior, all wearing the same school uniform. Cassie could guess these were Slytherin students as they were wearing green and silver ties. She scowled in response at them, but turned quickly to stare at the professor. She was about to meet his gaze squarely, trying to figure out exactly what was behind the dark eyes, but she felt a small tug on her sleeve and she looked down to see a very small piece of parchment shoved under it. She looked down to read it and felt all the color drain out of her face.

"I forgot to tell you. He can read your mind (I'm not kidding). Don't meet his eyes with yours." So instead of staring directly at his face, Cassie stared behind his head, hoping that he would think she was looking at him and not call attention to her. Again. The man was really insufferable and very rude. She remembered that when she had been at Hogwarts in June, this man had taken points from Harry because he was still alive and had very unfairly taken points from Ron for having his wand out in the hallway although he was only going to defend Harry. She thought of the many times in the next few weeks she would be subjected to his behavior and felt a pit of dislike harden in her stomach.

Then he spoke again and Cassie felt like she was going to throw up. She concentrated on what he was saying and tried to remember which box was which of the Skiving Snackboxes. She might have to use one right away. "We were supposed to be continuing our unit on poisons and their antidotes today, but I think we will have a small detour from our original lesson plans. Veritaserum - who can tell me about it?" Cassie didn't raise her hand but there were plenty of takers. He called on one of the Slytherin students who answered correctly and got 10 points. She listened with amazement to the answer. Wizards apparently had a potion that could make someone tell the truth about something. That was pretty amazing. She knew that there was such a thing "in the real world" but thought it was pretty unreliable. Of course, this might be, too. Snape spoke again, elaborating on what the student had said. "That's right. Three drops of this truth serum will have anyone rushing to speak of their most intimate secrets. When my class brews this, I always like to try it on some students." Cassie felt his eyes on her face and she stared determinedly down at the table. It was obvious that he was intending to try it on her. Would it work on a Muggle? She imagined so. "It takes a month to brew, however, so it will be a while before we have the privilege of hearing some of you students confess all of their secret deeds and thoughts." Cassie swallowed hard. A month, okay. She could live with that. Certainly, she'd be gone by then. That would be after Christmas and everything. She just knew that she could never let him give her that potion. If you had asked her a month ago she would have said that she had almost nothing to hide. She had always been a pretty good girl. (Although the idea of revealing everything she had thought, said, or done was not pleasant.) However, now she had one very big secret to conceal, the fact that she was a Muggle masquerading as a witch was certainly one very major part of that secret. But even that took a backseat to the secret she was hiding concerning Voldemort's cronies and their plans. If that got out, it would mean disaster for her, her family, and probably numerous other people.

"Now, Miss Spencer, I am sure that you expect to be teamed up with your cousin for this class." Cassie's head whipped up. Of course she was going to be teamed with Ginny, wasn't she? "But that would leave Miss McCrae alone and we can't have that." Elspeth cleared her throat intending to speak. They had already decided she would partner up with a girl from another house whose usual partner had apparently gotten hurt in some sort of transfiguration mixup the day before but before the girl could even start to say that, Snape glared at her and she backed down. "No, you will partner with . . . Mr. Caden." She looked around quickly. There was a dark-haired boy in the front of the class who was smiling at her and she knew with a sudden instinct that this Slytherin boy would be her lab partner. "Now, Mr. Caden, make sure that Miss Spencer does her fair share of the work. We need to make sure she is as competent as she assures us she is." Cassie shot Ginny a panicked look and was not reassured by the equally panicked brown eyes that met hers. She stood hesitantly and picked up her book bag. The boy who had been sitting by the boy named Caden got up with a sarcastic smirk and moved to another table. Apparently, Professor Snape didn't have any objections to displacing other students as long as Cassie was as discomfitted as possible.

The walk across the room felt like it was a mile although it was probably only about 20 feet. She sat down mechanically in the chair and stared unseeingly at the wall above the Professor's head. What was she going to do? She had absolutely no idea what would be expected of her and no idea of even where to start making this potion. Professor Snape was discussing the various ingredients that would go into the potion, smirking at her periodically. She tried to look interested but most of the words he was saying meant absolutely nothing to her. She thought it might be like making soup, strange soup, but still this was doable. However, the difficulty of the various ingredients, the way it had to be stirred, the extremely detailed spells that had to be said at various steps in the process made her realize that potion making was definitely not like making soup. There was no way she could do this. Absolutely no way. Then, suddenly, she had to.

Snape waved his wand and the instructions were on the board and the various students around the room started working. "Hi, my name is Niles. What's yours? Besides Spencer, of course."

"Pia. Pia Spencer." Okay, well he wasn't biting her, yet.

"Don't be too nervous. He's like that to everyone. Well, except for our house, of course."

She nodded, having no idea what he was talking about but not wanting to admit it.

"You're a Weasley then?"

"A . . . cousin." Her throat was so dry with nerves that she could barely spit out the word. "On their mother's side. But that family, yes."

"Ah. Look why don't you get the water and we'll get started. I'll go pick up the ingredients." She nodded numbly, looking at the board and then looking at the other students. One person from each partnership had taken the cauldron over to a big sink in the corner and was filling it with water. The board said a certain measurement but no one else seemed to be measuring. She wondered about that but the mystery was soon solved. She picked up the cauldron (which was surprisingly heavy) from the table and walked over to the sink. The water ran continuously from the snake head that served as the faucet but a student would approach it and say some sort of spell along with the amount of water that they wanted. Then the faucet would turn off automatically when that amount was in their cauldron. Great. She was doomed. She waited her turn in line, sure that the entire ceiling of this dungeon would collapse when she got up there and didn't know what to do. Then it was her turn and just as she was about to confess to her stupidity, she heard Ginny's voice behind her, clear and quiet. The faucet did its job and Cassie had the proper amount in her cauldron as she walked slowly back to her table.

Niles smiled at her as she set the cauldron on the table. He lit the fire under the cauldron immediately and Cassie tried not to let her absolute shock show on her face. The fire burned with a blue flame, just sitting on the top of table, not actually burning the surface, and not burning any fuel that Cassie could see. Plus, as she passed her hand by it she realized that there was no heat from the flames. Interesting. Very interesting. Okay, terrifying would work, too.

"Here, you cut up the leeches and I'll peel the shrivelfigs." He dumped a very disgusting looking mass of grayish worms onto her cutting board and some equally disgusting looking seed things onto his own. "They work best at a nice even dice - maybe about oh, one-quarter inch or so." Cassie gulped. This did not look very fun at all. But, okay. She could at least cut. Leeches. She hoped they weren't alive still. She poked one with a knife point while Niles was looking the other direction. No movement. Good. As she chopped them up, she tried to pretend they were cucumbers. She hated those and hated cutting them up almost as bad as she hated eating them. But, she had to all the time and managed to survive so she fixed on that idea and chopped as carefully as she could.

Meanwhile, he finished peeling whatever it was he was peeling and started shredding some feathers. When she was done, he looked at her pile and nodded his approval and handed her some of the feathers, too. "These have to be shredded to mix into the potion. When we're done here, we'll add these ingredients and let them simmer." Cassie glanced up at the board.

"For 20 minutes, right?"

"Yeah, that's right." While they were working, he asked her a few simple questions about where she was from and why she had come to Hogwarts so late in the year. She was able to answer all of them as they had discussed the evening before in Dumbledore's office and felt fairly confident that he wouldn't be able to trick her up. They finished the shredding and he added the peeled things.

He had reached over for her leeches to stir them in when she felt a presence behind her. She knew without looking that it was Professor Snape. "Caden, Spencer." He bent down over their shoulders to look down into their cauldron. "You're a little behind, don't you think?" Niles didn't actually agree or disagree.

"We're doing fine sir. All our feathers are already shredded."

"Ah. And you're letting Miss Spencer do her share of the work?"

"Yes, sir. She shredded the feathers and cut up the leeches."

"Hmmmm." He moved on, and Cassie had the brief thought that maybe that meant he could find no fault with her chopping or shredding. Her heart felt significantly lighter as she added the last of the leeches to the pot and then just a few moments later helped Niles with the feathers. This was a more difficult task than she had imagined as the feathers kept getting caught on currents of air that were caused by students walking by or even just talking. Even her own breath would cause them to float up and she had a terrible time getting them into the pot. Finally, though, after a few minutes, they were all in there and Niles stood up.

"I'm going to go get the rest of the ingredients. This needs to simmer, so turn the fire down a little, would you?" And then he was gone. Cassie stared with consternation at the fire. Turn it down? How was she supposed to do that? She held her wand firmly in her hand. She should at least fake it, but she didn't even know the spell. On sudden inspiration, though, she pulled the card out of her pocket. Yes, there is was, okay. She was about to murmur the spell, hoping that he would just think she was incompetent when nothing happened when she heard a female voice from behind her say "Descendio" and her fire decreased significantly. She turned. A girl smiled shyly at her. Cassie wasn't sure what house she was from although her tie was black and yellow.



"That's about right. It keeps it at a good simmer without letting it get too cool. You'll get used to it eventually." Cassie realized that the girl had thought she could do the spell, was just unsure of the level to keep the fire and she smiled her gratitude, thinking all the stars above for her kindness. A moment later, Niles returned.

"That's perfect. While this simmers, let's go ahead and chop up the beetle eyes and the Ashwinder eggs. Then we can add them after the, uh . . ."

But Cassie was ready for him. "After the aconite."

"Yeah, that's right. Boy, you really know your stuff."

Cassie just smiled faintly. It was right up on the board but maybe he wasn't used to having to follow along. "I'll do the eggs." She thought that sounded a lot less disgusting than beetle eyes, although when she actually looked at both ingredients she realized it probably wouldn't have made any difference. Yuck. This class was just as disgusting as she thought it was going to be. Snape passed by a few times as she was chopping but he didn't say anything to her. He did reduce one girl to tears when he insulted her chopping technique, but no one seemed too surprised so maybe this was not uncommon. Several house points were lost by every house except Slytherin and Cassie wondered about that. He did seem rather biased toward them. After all the chopping was finished and the other ingredients had been measured (a handy measuring spoon was available at each table) and lined up in the order they were going to be used, they had about five more minutes before the simmering had been completed and some spells had to be said and some stirring had to be done and some other ingredients had to be added. Ugh. This was as bad as she had feared. Hermione hadn't been exaggerating when she had called this class a "We're in big trouble" one. It was only sheer luck that had kept her out of trouble so far.

"So, are you a pure-blood?" The question was so sudden that Cassie almost jumped. They had been talking a little but only about the potions ingredients, nothing personal since she had confirmed that she was indeed related to Ginny. She was glad this had been decided in advance. Hermione was right. They did ask and they did care.

"Of course." Cassie injected every bit of confidence she had in this statement. It had to sound convincing.

"Well, I wasn't sure, with you being a Weasley and all."

"What do you mean by that?" She felt the indignation rising in her for the sake of the few Weasleys that she did know. Something else was going on here that she did not understand.

"The way they are, I figured you could be, um, you know, mixed."

"And how are they, exactly?"

"You know they are a bunch of Muggle-loving blood traitors." He scowled at her, like he really wished she hadn't made him actually say it out loud.

That sounded pretty bad. Cassie didn't feel that she could argue the point. She didn't know what a blood traitor was exactly but she did know that Arthur Weasley did seem to be a Muggle-lover. This was, apparently, not a good thing in Niles's eyes. Strange, he seemed to be nice in general. "Well, the Weasleys, as you undoubtedly know, are pure blood back farther than they can remember. And I would match my pedigree up against yours any day." Okay, where had that come from? She did not want to get into a contest with this boy. She knew nothing about him. "That's assuming you're a pure-blood. Are you?" His scowl deepened. Apparently, he felt she had really insulted him by even questioning it.

"Of course I am. I'm in Slytherin aren't I?"

"Oh. Of course. Sorry." That was interesting. Something she hadn't known before. Were all the Slytherins pure blooded? Seemed like it. He sulked for another minute and Cassie wasn't sure whether to laugh or apologize.

"We better add the next ingredients." A few minutes later, it was simmering again. That had been a pretty impressive bit of potion-making, Cassie thought, especially for a Muggle. They had added the ingredients as required and the liquid in the cauldron had turned from a bright blue to a almost fiery red and then to a rather pale green. It had bubbled and boiled and foamed and steamed and Cassie felt like reciting a few lines from Shakespeare as he stirred but she resisted the temptation. She doubted he would find it amusing. The steam that had risen from the potion as it boiled explained a lot of the smell down here in the dungeons. It didn't stink, exactly. Pungent. That was the right word. It was very pungent.

When calm reigned again in the cauldron, Niles looked again at her. "So, you're in Gryffindor."

"Yes."

"I suppose you've met Potter, then." It wasn't a question.

Cassie felt like smiling but she kept her face straight. She had met him all right. But she did not think Niles would care to find out exactly how well she knew "Potter." He would undoubtedly not approve. "Yes, I've met him. He seems nice."

"Well, don't get too attached. It won't be long before he and the rest of his bunch . . . " His voice trailed off and Cassie felt her stomach clench again. Certainly the Slytherins didn't support Voldemort, did they?

"What were you going to say?" she asked. He just scowled some more.

"Never mind."

"Are you saying that you want Harry to lose his fight with Voldemort?"

"Don't say his name! Are you insane?" His voice was a low hiss. Cassie was taken aback. She had never met anyone who . . . oh, wait. Yeah, she vaguely remembered that Hermione had told her that most of the wizarding world never said Voldemort's name.

"Sorry. But do you? Want Harry to lose? You want 'him' to win, to take over?"

"No, I don't care who wins. My family is just trying to survive, okay? I don't think Potter has a chance against The Dark Lord. We're just keeping our options open." Cassie stared for a while at her table, unsure of what to say in response. She had assumed that everyone at the school at least was fighting against Voldemort. He was so evil. How could anyone support him? Her mind was reeling and her stomach was churning. Fortunately, she was saved from needing to say anything by Snape calling the class to attention.

"Add your final ingredients now. If your potion is not crystal clear then you have made a mistake and will need to turn in an essay telling me where you did so." Cassie held her breath as she added the final bit of some powdered root and Niles stirred. The potion stayed green for two very long minutes and then, suddenly, with the blink of an eye turned absolutely clear. Like water.

"Aaaah!" they both said together, and despite herself, Cassie grinned at Niles. "That's fantastic. Incredible." She was struck again by the paradox. He seemed to be a nice person, was friendly, polite. But he didn't support Harry. This war obviously was a lot more complicated than she had originally thought. She'd have to ask Ginny and Harry about this later. Snape came up behind them again.

"Very good, Caden. Did you help, Spencer?"

"You know I did, sir. I did quite a bit of it."

"Hmmm. Well, move the cauldron to the back room and make sure you keep it on a nice simmer. Then clean up this mess." She had no idea what he meant by taking the cauldron to the back room but she noticed other students carrying their cauldrons (manually she was very pleased to note) through a door that led to what was obviously another room. She picked up their cauldron and headed that direction, also, but before she got far . . . .

"Niles, do you want to come back and look at it once I get it settled?"

"No, I trust you." Great. Wrong thing to say. She walked carefully into the back. The cauldron was heavy and she was worried about spilling it. When she got back there, she noticed that there were fires going for each student to put his or her cauldron over, to apparently let it stew for the required time. Each one was labeled with the partnership's name and she was extremely surprised to see "Caden and Spencer" next to one of the fires. She put her cauldron carefully on it and then didn't know what to do, the fire had to be turned down but the girl who had saved her before was nowhere in sight. Well, she'd have to fake it and then get Niles to come actually turn it down. She gripped her wand tightly. "Descendio." Cassie about had a heart attack as the fire went to a nice simmer. She turned in surprise and saw Ginny, who had just entered with her own cauldron. She smiled but Ginny looked a little harried as she settled her own cauldron on the appropriate fire (Weasley and McCrae). Cassie found out why when a moment later Snape followed her in.

"Weasley, five points from Gryffindor. I had not yet looked at your potion and told you to bring it back here."

"Sorry, sir. I forgot." Cassie was sorry to see that Ginny's potion was not quite crystal clear. It was a very pale green.

"I want an essay on what you did wrong with this potion. 12 inches at least."

"Yes, sir." Ginny scowled after him as he left. "You slimy git."

Cassie laughed and squeezed Ginny's arm. "Thanks." Then she stepped back out into the main room. Niles was busily cleaning up the knives and measuring spoons and by the time Cassie got back to their table, there was not much left for her to do. She scrubbed haphazardly at the stains the leeches had left on the cutting surface and then Snape dismissed the class.

"Goodbye, Pia. We'll probably be working together the rest of the year. So I'll see you next time." Niles waved as he left the classroom.

"Yeah, okay. Bye." Cassie slowed down to wait for Ginny and Elspeth to finish cleaning up their mess. Apparently, someone near them had had an accident because there was a lot of spilled potion around and about six people were looking extremely aggravated as they tried to get it cleaned up.

"Miss Spencer. I wish to speak to you." Cassie looked around to see Snape leaning against his desk looking pointedly at her.

"Um, actually sir, I've got another class right now."

"Now, please." Ginny shot her a look and Cassie took a deep breath and walked over to him.

"Yes, sir."

"Something is going on here that I have not been informed about. You are not all that you purport to be. I will be keeping an eye on you."

"I'm sorry you feel that way, sir. I will do my best to live up to the Headmaster's expectations of me." Cassie was careful not to meet his eyes but to sort of come close to it. It was not a comfortable feeling for her because she liked to meet people's gazes fully so that she could understand them a little bit. This man was a complete mystery to her and would probably be so until she left. Too bad. He seemed to be sort of an interesting person, even if he was unfair and prejudiced and mean and rude about the Weasleys. There was more to him than he was letting out, too. In that, they had something in common. She turned and met Ginny and Elspeth as they headed out the door.

"Come on, Pia. We've got Defense next. We don't want to be late for that."

Oh, Cassie thought. So that's what those letters stood for on her schedule. This was the class with the gold star. She wondered if that star was a good thing or a bad thing. She would have asked Ginny but with Elspeth chatting on about potions class Cassie did not have a chance. It would have been too suspicious. They walked a long distance, climbing from the dungeons and then up an unspecified number of floors. Cassie had to hop over one trick step and they had to go back down one staircase and try it again because it had shifted from its usual position and Ginny and Elspeth didn't want to go the long way around.

As the three girls were heading down the hallway which apparently would take them to the classroom, Elspeth giggled. "There's Colin Creevey." Cassie's stomach plummeted but of course Ginny did not know she would prefer not to meet him and Elspeth would have no idea either. "Hi, Colin. How are you today?" She smiled shyly up at him and Cassie was struck again by how much she obviously liked him. He didn't exactly seem oblivious, just distracted.

"Hi, Elspeth, Ginny, and . . ."

"Uh, hi, Colin." Cassie suddenly jumped in. "It's nice seeing you again."

"You two have met?" Ginny was surprised at this.

"Yeah. Earlier." Something of the panic in her voice must have been audible because Ginny hurriedly sent Elspeth in to get them a spot. Elspeth looked fairly disappointed this time but she went.

"Cassie, isn't it?" Colin asked. 'I bet you thought I'd forgotten you. But even though your hair is different, I definitely recognize you. Are you surprised?" Ginny looked flummoxed and Cassie didn't blame her.

"No. Not really. Look, could we talk for a minute?"

"Sure." He stepped obligingly with her toward a small alcove set into the wall and Ginny with one last panicked look entered the classroom behind Elspeth.

"Colin. My name is not Cassie. That was kind of a made-up thing. For Harry. He didn't know then, but he does now. He knows my name is Pia Spencer and I'm not Muggle-born at all."

"What?" He looked at her, obviously very confused.

"Well, it started as a joke. You know. To get him to show me around on his broom. I'd always wanted to ride a Firebolt."

"Why would you have needed to fool him? He's really generous to give rides . . ."

"Look, Colin. It's very complicated." She sounded just like Harry now. "I can't really explain. But my name is really Pia and I'm a pure-blood."

"Oh." Too late, Cassie remembered that Colin was Muggle-born so rather than reassuring him, her last statement had been a subtle insult. "Pia, then?"

"Yes, please. And please don't say anything to anyone else about the time we met before or call me Cassie as a joke. It could get someone into a lot of trouble. Namely, me."

"Yeah. All right." His voice was flat. "If that's what you want."

"It's really important. For Harry and the war and everything."

"Okay. I've got Defense now, too, if that's where you're going."

"I am going there. That's great. I'll actually know someone else in the class besides . . . Elspeth." She watched his face. Not a flicker. Well, the girl was right. He hardly knew she was alive. But that could be changed. Oh, yeah. It could. They walked into the class together.