My anger evaporates as flames erupt, replaced a split second later by a stab of pain as the tiniest trickle of air worms its way into my lungs. It's too strong, I know. I went too far, and the flames biting into the darkness will devour us both…
I try to remember how to care about that, contemplating the image of strangled and charred corpses that worms its way into my mind. An image, though, any image is something, indicative of some degree of brain function and therefore oxygen in the blood. I never knew that before, not on such a personal level… But next to me, Violet barely breathes, no longer struggles. Limp and still. Face charred black as her curls. No it isn't. Those are the spots. Black now, why are they black?
I blink away the smoke. Violet could be sleeping peacefully. The flames are lick closer to my eyes and I don't close them. The squid is still down here, somewhere. I can feel it.
Why did I start the fire? Death was fine the way it was.
My breath hisses outward. I won't draw it in again…the Devil's Snare has won anyway; the spots are winning, dark against the flames, blotting them out. I try to close my eyes, to extinguish the flames properly, but I can't see anymore…
The heat doesn't stop…why doesn't the heat stop?
The vines loosen.
All around us the plant hisses and contracts, fleeing the spreading flame. After a moment I remember how to draw breath, and fresh, cold oxygen pours back into my veins.
Not cold. Warm. Too warm.
Nothing has changed except the sweetness of oxygen and the dizzying rush through my veins. The air is warm and smoky and it tastes too good. The fire will still flare up and swallow us both, or it will burn out in the cold dampness. I still can't decide which is worse.
Turns out I don't need to.
For the second time this evening I'm falling, watching the world go black.
When I come to, Violet is bent over me. There are tears tracking down her face. Don't cry now, I try to tell her, it's pointless to cry now…
Violet registers my blinking and her face crumples with shuddering relief. It's painful to watch. Throbbingly painful. Maybe that's the back of my head. I must have hit the ground hard.
"Annie, Annie, I didn't think you were going to wake up…"
Slowly, with Vi's help I pull my unresponsive limbs into sitting position. The vines, I remember. The vines were on fire, burning with the vile plasticky smell of something not meant to be burned. Does magic have a smell? I can't remember. I don't think so. The giant dog would know. It leaned over me, explaining everything in an exhale of slobbery breath, while I took careful notes in an old schoolbook, and the squid laid a damp tentacle on my forehead to test my temperature. I worry, though. All that drool, the pages will be ruined, and if the pages are ruined I won't remember, will never understand…
Nonsense. My head is full of utter nonsense. Resting my head between my knees, I work backwards through my memories, weeding out the least likely. Only apparent explanation is…
"We dropped through the floor?"
She nods, letting out a quavering breath. Coming back to herself again. "I think so. It must be designed—I don't know how you got us out of there."
"Fire." I still don't have breath to waste.
She gapes at me. "Brilliant."
"Lucky guess." I roll onto my back.
Ten minutes of silence, collapsed together on the cold floor—stone—, while Violet hacks to rid her lungs of smoke. I don't have the energy to sit back up, let alone cough, so I stare up at the ceiling, glaring suspiciously at a lifelessly few dangling vines. From down here they are oddly inanimate. Enchanted, I guess, by whoever designed this network of rooms. Whoever hid away something valuable enough to merit protection by means of murderous vegetation and a giant canine.
The vines themselves appear to make up the ceiling, woven and twisted haphazardly together. Through small gaps I watch the glow of flames die down, letting the smoke filter slowly out of my lungs. Finally I drag myself to a technically upright position and wipe the sting from my eyes.
There is a passage to the left, gaping empty and dark as a skull's empty sockets.
"I've no idea how we're going to get back up, so…onward?"
Violet, who has regained her composure with admirable rapidity, nods and helps me up.
"Lead the way, good lady."
We don't get very far. The next room stumps us.
It's full of buzzing, colorful, flittering…keys.
And two broomsticks.
"Don't look at me," says Violet, laughing. "I'm dead clumsy. I can fly all right, but catching anything…"
She notices my expression, however, and turns away. "I'll give it a try."
She wasn't exaggerating about the clumsy part.
We tell each other we'll come back later. But the Cleansweeps are the only way out. I close my eyes as we clamber onto one of them, and clutch Violet's shoulders, letting her steer. She has the grace not to say anything about it, perhaps remembering her own panic with the Devil's Snare.
At Violet's suggestion, I borrow her wand and conjure the strongest Lumos I can manage. We make it back through the ceiling and trapdoor unmolested. The broom twitches impatiently as we clamber off it, and zooms immediately back through the trapdoor.
I lock the door as we depart, making sure to use my wand this time. Vi catches my stare lingering on the door and gives me a nudge.
"Don't worry. We'll be back."
A disbelieving smile worms its way onto my face.
"You're kind of amazing, you know that?"
"What?" She sounds startled.
"You nearly…you know. Died."
"Well, you don't have to rub it in."
"Erm…" I turn my head automatically, but with her dark skin and hair and petite stature Violet is nearly invisible in the unlit corridor. I feel a flash of envy, catching the pale blur of my own face reflected from a highly polished suit of armor. "Vi, are you embarrassed?"
"A little. Why?"
"It's just that I'm not sure you should be this blasé about near-death experiences."
"Please." Another flash of white in the darkness, but this time it's Violet's teeth. I realize she's grinning at me. "I grew up with eight brothers, Annie. Most of us started expressing our magic as toddlers. It's lucky I survived until now."
"Guess I never thought of that," I say, guilt assuaged slightly. "Seriously though, Vi, I'm sorry."
"For what? You saved me."
"I brought us here. I'm the reason you needed saving. You really want to go back?"
"I do, actually," says Violet. "But it doesn't really matter. Because you're going back. Aren't you?"
I want to laugh and say No, of course not, why would I do such a thing? But like most rational replies, the words refuse to leave my mouth. Instead I ask, "What makes you think so?"
"Transfiguration."
For the key? "I don't see how that will help us…"
"No. Transfiguration class. Remember last week? When we were trying to change clovers to daisies? You sucked at it."
Ouch.
"Unfortunately I recall that very well."
"Like, really bad. Like, I didn't even know you could suck at something that bad. For about two days," Violet rushes on, before I have time to say anything. "And then you disappeared after dinner on Thursday. I guess you were in the library because next thing I know you've got a whole stack of books—not only Transfiguration but even a Muggle book you rustled up from somewhere—"
"Botany. The Hogwarts Library is thin on science, so I had Mother send it."
"Bot-uh-nee," repeats Violet. "Yes, that's what the Muggles call Herbology. I checked it out, it was weird. The pictures don't even move. So anyway, you bury your nose in these books and then you start talking my ear off about Transfiguration theory and by the start of next class McGonagall is losing her mind over your 'flawless execution of the epitomic Asteraceae specimen'."
My cheeks flush, and I'm glad it's dark.
"Maybe it was a ridiculous amount of effort for a class project, but I have at least a loose understanding of the theory now. Did McGonagall just expect us to effect the change without understanding the anatomical differences? There's more to plant physiology than a flat head and lots of petals. Altering the appearance on a surface level is no better than illusion!"
"And that's how I know you'll go back down the trapdoor," Violet snickers. "You can't stand not to know things, Annie."
I open my mouth to reply and then shut it, because she's right.
"Just promise me you won't go back alone. It's too dangerous."
We descend a staircase in silence.
"That's why I don't want to bring you along," I say finally.
"You don't bring me anywhere. I come because I'd rather do crazy things with my crazy best friend than beat Gary at Gobstones for the umpteenth time. Anyway, I'm curious too. You're not the only one who likes to know things."
Best friend?
"I'm your—"
"Duh," says Violet. "Aren't I yours?"
"By far," I say, running my fingertips along the worn stone wall. "But I've never really felt like that's my call to make."
We've descended several floors by now but are still far from the common room, which is in a wing to the southeast, beside the lake. By unspoken agreement Violet and I traverse the ground floor rather than descending immediately to the dungeons, which would bring us perilously close to the Hufflepuff common room.
"That's dumb. Give yourself some credit."
"You already know so much," I say, and immediately regret it. The statement sounds plaintive, helpless. And it hardly scrapes the surface of the problem: my social inadequacies were genuine enough even before magic was involved. But it's what comes out. This school, this world, is overwhelming. Overwhelming in a brilliant way, but still. What a head start they have, my classmates. Heads nodding in recognition when Slughorn mentions a familiar potion, or Flitwick a Charm, or anyone a vague reference to someone who must not be named. "So much about…all of this."
My gesture in the darkness is unreadable, but it's clear I'm referring to the castle and all it stands for.
Violet huffs under her breath.
"I know a normal amount. Okay," after a pause. "A little more than normal."
This is an understatement. It is not lack of brains that sent Violet to Slytherin.
"After all," she continues, "I have all my brothers to tell me stuff about Hogwarts, and you said you haven't got any siblings. But you're the smartest person I know. You're just a little—look, one-sided isn't even the word for it. You can do some really cool magic, like that trick you pulled with the lock. So here's what I don't get: if you're so desperate to learn magic, why have you been bothering with all of that Muggle stuff?"
I shake back my sleeve as we move briskly past a lighted corridor to check the time on my digital watch. Stupid thing is still broken, I forgot. But my sigh of irritation is aimed more at my friend than my useless timepiece.
"Honestly, Violet. What do you expect me to do?"
I make to pull my sleeve back down as we move back into the shadows, but a small hand clamps around my wrist and pulls me in the wrong direction, down a seldom-used corridor behind the Transfiguration classroom.
"This way."
"It's too late for more exploring, Vi," I say under my breath. By my electronically unaided estimate it's nearing one in the morning.
"This isn't about exploring. We need to talk."
"We are talking. Let's get back to the common room, at least. I don't fancy a six-hour detention like the one McGonagall gave those Hufflepuffs the other day."
"I don't think this is a conversation we ought to have in the common room."
Mindful of our rule-breaking, the two of us have been speaking in low tones all evening, but I have to strain to make out these last words. Completely mystified, I allow myself to be pulled into a random classroom. There's a pause, while Violet scans the room to be certain it's empty of lurking staff and their cats, or lurking staff who are cats, and then she mutters something under her breath and the door swings shut as though on oiled hinges.
"Silencing Charm," she says, with her back turned. "Kids really aren't supposed to do magic outside of Hogwarts, but…well, the Ministry can't trace the spellcaster, so we can sometimes get away with it. Those of us who live with magical parents, that is. You don't, do you?"
The question tacked on to the end of her rambling doesn't come out casually at all.
"No," I say after a pause. "I don't. But why-"
"You live with your mum in central London?"
"Yes, I told you that our first day."
"But she's not a witch. You didn't tell me that bit."
"No," I say with growing unease. Do witches live on main streets in central London? I picture them scattered in cottages and abandoned manors around the country, or squeezed into cozy little flats above enchantment-protected places like Diagon Alley. Enclaves made by and for our kind. Places we won't be noticed.
"And your da?"
"He's dead. I told you that."
"I know, and I'm sorry," says Vi, shaky but sincere. "But that's not what I'm—look, was he a Muggle too?"
It's been nearly half an hour since we exited the trapdoor. While we were sneaking through the corridors, it still felt like an adventure. But in this silent classroom I can feel the last dregs of adrenaline draining away. Nothing replaces them but hollow weariness.
A single clang rings out through the building, confirming my earlier guess. It's one in the morning and I'm standing in a fog of sleep deprivation and building anxiety and not prepared to be grilled on my family life.
So instead of answering Violet directly, I tiredly ask, "Does it matter?"
"Not to me," she says in a small, strained voice, and I don't know what that means either. "Never to me. But please, Annie—I think I need to know."
"Yes," I say, wooden as the desk I'm sinking into. "He was a Muggle too."
I know what's coming, and I squeeze my eyes shut, tight, as though that will make a difference in the darkness. I hate this. Now Vi will start to put two and two together, connect my name to the stale rumors and urban legends that must have slipped through even to wizardkind, and what was my first normal, simple friendship in seven years will be weighed down with sympathy and uncertainty. Before long, the entire school will have the story, and no one will ever look at me normally again—
Violet must read something of my distress, because she settles down in the chair next to me. Her dark hand finds my pale one and gives it a little squeeze.
"I promise," she says in a low voice, "that I will never, ever care about this sort of thing. I won't treat you any different. But I think we'd better keep it quiet, don't you?"
Really?
"Yes," I say, allowing the tiniest bit of relief into my tone. "I think so too. Thank you."
Violet releases the breath she's been holding. "Good," she says. "I didn't want to offend you. In any other House it would be fine. Normal. But Slytherin has a bad reputation for its treatment of Muggleborns."
My eyes snap open. "What?"
"I just think—you know, Annie, the war wasn't all that long ago, and there could still be some prejudice…I know for a fact that Adriana's mum was a Death Eater. Better safe than sorry, don't you think?"
"Um…"
"And you pick everything up so quickly! You could pass for a half-blood, easy. Just say your dad was…oh, I don't know. A foreign wizard. American maybe."
"Violet, I haven't a clue what you're on about."
"Because of your last name," Violet explains, squeezing my hand again. "It's pretty British. But you don't want anyone in Wizarding Britain getting nosy about your family. Close-knit community. My mum's Irish but I'll bet my da knows everyone. You'll have to take that thing off, by the way." Her fingers pry at the watch on my wrist again. "Don't worry, we'll get you a wizard one. Can I look at it?"
"It's broken," I say inanely, pulling my arm away. "But you can marry the thing, for all I care, the instant you explain to me what's going on. You're worried about the fact that I'm…Muggleborn?"
"Not worried," reiterates Violet, in a very worried tone indeed. "I'm not like that, Andrea. Truly. But some of the others might be."
I'm utterly bewildered.
"Why?"
Violet takes so long to reply that I squint at her in the darkness, trying to make out the cause of her discomfort.
"I guess you wouldn't know," she says at last, in a very small voice.
"No." I really wouldn't.
"I… Annie, it's an awful thing to have to tell you."
"It's okay," I say, as soothingly as I can. "I don't blame you. Is something…dangerous?"
"Yes. No. I think. Okay," she takes a deep breath. "Annie, how much do you know about Muggle history?"
"In Britain? Just what I learned in school."
"Okay," says Violet again. "I don't know a lot myself. But my mum told me once that some Muggles used to really mistreat…um, people who look like me."
"Look like…" Realization dawns, and I blush too. "Oh. Dark skin. Yeah, there's still some anti-African sentiment, Vi. It's disgusting. But back in the old days it was way worse...hey, are you telling me that wizards don't have racism?"
"No…"
"That's wonderful!"
It's revolting, I think with a shudder, that the revelation shocks me so much. I haven't given wizarding history much thought, honestly. I've been much more interested in the practical applications of magic, and besides, the History of Magic teacher is as dull as he is dead. I figured racism was ubiquitous; just a nasty byproduct of human nature that emerges wherever cultures mix. But it appears it's just Muggles who went wrong.
Why? Are magical cultures just…more enlightened?
I tell my thoughts to Violet, and the air stirs slightly as she shakes her head.
"We don't have race-isms here, Annie, but I don't think we're that much more enlightened. I guess wizards never clashed over skin color because there were bigger differences to get mad about."
"Differences like…" The realization hits me like a chunk of lead. "Magic."
"Yeah," says Violet quietly. "Nobody in our world much cares what you look like, but there are some who don't think Muggles or Muggleborns are quite…"
"…People?"
Violet sighs. "A few. Yes."
My stomach is churning. My safe place, what I thought was my safe place, suddenly looms around me, dark and hostile.
"It's nonsense, Annie," says Violet earnestly. "All nonsense. Wizards and Muggles have been mingling for centuries; everyone's got at least some Muggle blood. It doesn't alter your magic in the slightest: either you've got that or you haven't. But there are some families; most of them purebloods, and a lot of them Slytherins, who will tell you otherwise."
I'm feeling lost. "But why…look, McGonagall told me there were plenty of students here from non-magical families."
"There are. Just not in Slytherin."
"None?"
"You're the first I've ever heard of," says Violet honestly. "But look, that doesn't mean much. I'm just a kid. All I'm saying is that we should keep this on the down-low, yeah? Make them get to know you, accept you, before they find out you're Muggleborn. Otherwise…well, some of them might not give you a chance."
A chance. I am not particularly accustomed to being on the receiving end of social acceptance, but then, neither am I certain I want it from anyone who only treats me like a human being under deception.
Violet reads my thoughts. "It sucks. But maybe…maybe it'll be good for them, Annie. You're going to be top of the class, I can already tell. It'll show them—"
"I don't have anything to prove," I say, quiet and cold. I had been looking forward to a year unencumbered by preconceptions.
"Of course not," she agrees hastily. "But they're kids too. They believe what their parents say…maybe until they see the truth for themselves."
I'm quiet for a moment. I've been on the receiving end of prejudice before…but not generalized prejudice. There's something humiliating, dehumanizing about it, and I hope Violet is wrong about its prevalence in Slytherin House.
"You mentioned a war?" I ask, to gain time.
"Yeah." Violet yawns. "But that's a discussion for another time. It must be nearly two o' clock, and we have Potions first thing in the morning…Anyway, I'll respect whatever you decide."
"You really think that…my being Muggleborn…will be a problem?"
"I don't want to," says Vi. "But…look, even my own grandmother was shocked when Hermione Granger became Minister of Magic. Gram's not hostile or anything; she fought on Dumbledore's side in the war. But that's how deep it runs."
"Okay," I say simply, rising and offering her a hand. "Thank you."
"For not being a Muggle-hater?" Violet asks a little contemptuously.
"No," I say. "For telling me. I wish McGonagall had. I guess she just didn't want Mum to fret."
We're just outside the common room when Violet asks, in a very low tone, "Are you still glad to be here at Hogwarts, Annie?"
I take her hand and pull her through the archway into the common room. "Aren't you?"
