Leonard headed to his locker the next morning after talking to his girlfriend and harrassing Malfoy's gang. His thick head was filled with the pleasure of causing them pain, and he bent down to pick up his books when he spotted something. The hangman hexmark.

That day during Slytherin quidditch practice, he found Malfoy and pulled him out by the collar, into the locker room, and slammed him against the wall. With him was one of his goonies. "Call off your ghost!" he shouted in Malfoy's face, which had contorted in pain from having a locker handle rammed into his back. He looked at Leonard menacingly.

"Why, you scared?" he hissed.

"Call off the ghost, man! Enough is enough!" roared Leonard.

"But then you'll miss out on all this fun." There was the sound of the locker room door opening, and Pansy ran in, looking frightened.

"Draco, what's going on?-" she was cut off then Leonard's goonie pinned her to the lockers and search through her pockets, Pansy screaming the entire time. He found her pocket mirror and threw it to the ground, breaking it. Snape stepped in, just in time, and pinned both Leonard and his goonie to the wall.

"Enough! Both of you!" he shouted. He looked at Malfoy and Pansy. "You two may go."

Malfoy and Pansy left, Pansy in tears, and Flint walked in.

"Is there a problem here?" he asked.

"No," called Leonard.

"Yes," said Snape. Flint smirked.

"Why don't you two sit on the bench for the rest of practice. Now!" They obeyed and Snape rolled his eyes. "Malfoy," laughed Flint. "A week body, the result of a week mind."

"Don't tell me you don't see the strong ones pick on the weak ones," said Snape. Flint shrugged.

"The way I see it, the strong ones triumph over the weak ones. And we the strong go far in life." Snape reached up and pulled Flint's pinky in an unnatural dirrection, but did not break it. Flint gasped in pain.

"Only strength is our weakest link, wouldn't you agree Flint?"

"Yeah," he gasped and Snape let go and left.

Malfoy kicked the fence to the quidditch field angrily with a growl, while Pansy sat in the stands, scribbling in her sketch book.

"What did we ever do to them?" she asked angrily, tearing out the page in her book. Malfoy shook his head.

"Nothing," he spat. "Just be different. That's all it took." He turned and saw Harry handing Pansy a small broken mirror. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Where did you get that?" he asked in a harsh tone. Harry paid it no heed, knowing they had a reason to be upset, and he looked at Pansy.

"Professor Snape wanted me to ask you if this is yours," he said softly, no hint of malice in his voice. It was almost as though he were talking to a friend. Pansy cringed at the mirror.

"It was," she answered miserably.

"You need to report this," said Harry.

"Oh that's a wonderful idea!" she said sarcastically. "I wonder why I didn't think of it three mirrors ago."

"You don't have to put up with this. Someone can do something..."

"Someone already has," said Malfoy. Pansy sensed an arguement, and walked back towards the school.

"Messing around with spirits is dangerous," said Harry.

"Yeah, well so is this school," said Malfoy coldly.

"You don't know what's behind that door that you're opening." He placed a hand on Malfoy's shoulder, but he sneered and tore free.

"I do," he snarled. "Abel's one of us. He's the only hope we've got in this place." He turned and started to walk off, but Harry grabbed him again to stop him.

"He's not," he said firmly. Malfoy looked angrily at him. "Trust me, he's not."

"You know you should really stay out of our business!" he growled, tearing free again. "It could go really bad for you and Hermione," he added before walking off.

"I hope Leonard, and all of them die!" hissed Pansy as she went to her locker, making sure Hermione heard as she passed her. Hermione turned and looked at her in surprise.

"Excuse me?" she asked softly. Pansy sneered, opening her locker in fury.

"Oh, did I say that out loud?" she asked in fake innocence. She cringed at Hermione again and continued to dig through her locker.

"Pansy," said Hermione. "I know I don't know you very well, but I do care about you." Pansy slammed her locker shut and walked off, but Hermione caught up to her. "Pansy! Pansy!"

"What were you doing outside the school last night?" she demmanded as she whipped around. "If you really do care, stay out. Certain forces are now in motion, and now nobody can change what's about to happen." She walked off, leaving Hermione to stare. Giving up, she turned and headed to her first period class. There was no one there yet, so she set her bag down on her desk, and thought about what had just happened.

"Who's your friend? Say hi to your friend," came a voice. She turned and almost fell over. The last person she expected to see, was holding a rat in the palm of his hand and watching it in facination. Goyle.

"That's one way to get a date," she said with a smirk as she aproached him. He looked at her, and blushed a little. Maybe he and Crabbe weren't so bad when Malfoy wasn't around? "Who's that?" she asked, petting the rat.

"Uh, this is Sarah. I bought her this year, but she stays here. Most of the other Slytherins like to use rats for magic experiments and stuff," he said. Hermione moved to the next animal cage where there were two lizards.

"What about these two?" she asked, getting a closer look.

"Max and Casper. They're from Africa." She turned and looked at him.

"What were you doing there?" she asked kindly, knowing he was warming up to her.

"Science camp trip. We studied the different animals and I brought these two back. Mum didn't really appreciate it though." Hermione snickered and he smirked, placing Sarah back in her cage.

Hermione walked over to a tank with a large snake in it.

"What about this one?" she asked. He looked over.

"That's Doris. Doris is a ball python."

"From Africa?"

"From the pet shop." He walked over and took the top off. "I don't like it when the kids tap on the cages and drive them crazy. Everybody needs a friend." He reached in an took it out slowly, and Hermione lightly stroked the back, feeling the scales and looking at the large black diamonds on the snake's back. Goyle looked at her, and gently handed the snake to her. Hermione smiled as Doris' head slythered around on her hand.

"Wow," said Goyle. "Most girls wouldn't."

"Please," she snickered. "She reminds me of a guy I almost dated." Moving slowly, she draped the snake around her neck, but made sure Doris didn't go around her neck completely. Goyle smiled as he watched.

"Be careful," he said softly. Hermione smiled, and thought for a moment how different this was from the Goyle she had learned to distrust. Maybe not all Slytherin's were all that bad. He reached over and took Doris back and placed her in the tank.

Parvati walked into the room and saw Hermione and Goyle, watching the snake. "Oh, hi," she said. Hermione glanced up. "I'm going," she said gesturing out the door. Hermione grabbed her stuff and walked off with her. As they passed the air vent, Parvati suddenly stopped and looked at it curiously.

"What?" asked Hermione.

"Did you hear that?" she asked. They waited a moment, and Parvati shrugged. "Weird. C'mon." They walked off together in silence.