"Oh, well done!" Flitwick crows at me, as the plume on Violet's quill flickers from violet to Slytherin-green and back again. And again. "Twenty points to Slytherin!"
Vi nudges me and grins, but I shrug a little, wishing the praise was less extravagant. A dozen glares are boring into my back, and I know from witnessing, thus far from the sidelines, that Gryffindor wrath can be dangerous.
Not all of the glares are from Gryffindors, either.
Flitwick is still speaking, unfortunately.
"Highly impressive, to produce a permanent alternating color change as a first year! Would you mind demonstrating to the class how you did it?"
I stare at my desk. "It's just a color-change spell," I say quietly.
"Yes, but…" Flitwick picks up the quill, starts to hold it aloft and then changes his mind and hovers it above the heads of the class instead. "…Observe, class," he says. "I requested a single color change: hue alteration at the simplest level. Your classmate has managed a far greater feat. Watch the unwavering oscillation. Three seconds: green. Three seconds: purple. One-two-three. One-two-three. And so forth."
"Glad you can count, Andy," calls a male Gryffindor voice from the back row. I don't recognize it instantly, but as the back row is prime seating where Gryffindors are concerned, it's almost certainly one of Potter's gang. A thud follows, and a slight 'ow' as someone slaps the speaker on the shoulder too hard. If Violet's older brothers had been Gryffindors instead of Ravenclaws, it is almost certain she would not have survived to school age.
It was, in fact, something of a surprise to me to learn that other Hogwarts students can count; with the exception of the Muggleborns, none of them attended primary school. Most wizarding parents, I am told, follow an extremely loose homeschooling curriculum, meaning that they make it up as they go along and some of them manage to remember their multiplication tables. Some even organize rotating class groups with other Wizarding parents, in order to give their children the most diverse education possible and get some time to themselves. Violet says you never knew what you were going to learn when it was the Scamanders' turn in the rotation. A side effect of this system is that most of the wizard-raised students knew one another before entering Hogwarts, at least nominally. Muggleborns have to play catch-up in more ways than one.
It is not difficult to console myself over this loss with the fact that I can do trigonometry.
Flitwick has climbed back onto his chair and is busy reproving my Gryffindor naysayer.
"Ah, Mr. Plunkett, but you have missed my meaning. The significance is not in the count itself, but the steady alternation between colors: the sign of a lasting, balanced spell. I don't suppose," turning toward me, "that you would be willing to demonstrate to the class—"
There appears to be no escape, so I sigh inwardly as the rest of the class sighs outwardly and make my way to the front. My own quill pen is already sparkling with an astronomically accurate rendition of the Pleiades constellation, so I'm turning to Flitwick to ask what item to use as the subject for the spell when a shout rings down the aisle.
"Hey, Annie!"
It's James Potter. Sitting in the middle of the back row, broad grin plastered to his face…feet waving in the air. One foot, anyway.
"Can you turn my socks green and gold? For my mum's Quidditch team?"
"Only if you wear them to the next Hogwarts match, Potter," comes out of my mouth before I know what I'm saying. The class goes quiet, followed by an upswell of murmurs from the Gryffindor side of the room, a few snickers from mine. Gold is a Gryffindor color, but green…isn't.
I expect James to back down, but to my surprise he just laughs.
"Deal," he says, over the protests of his classmates, and swings his legs over the desk, shoes already discarded. He reaches over to strip the socks off, too, but I halt him with a wince.
"No need, Potter, I'll just…do it from here."
He grins again and sticks out his feet toward me, and I actually feel bad for the Gryffindors in the middle row. I take a deep breath and raise my wand. It's highly tempting to "miss" and hit his robe…or his hair…or one of his friends…but I'm curious as to whether he'll really wear these pseudo-Slytherin socks to the matches.
"Alternis colorum!"
James lifts a foot and grins as it alternates between a deep emerald green and an eye-dazzling gold.
"Awesome! Thanks Annie!"
I smile thinly and wonder how long before he notices I've changed his scarf too.
The secret room is still a mystery. I like mysteries.
Violet, on the other hand, finds it about as attractive as doodling over her copy of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1 during study time.
That is to say, only marginally more interesting than actually studying.
"It's a dusty old mirror, Annie!" she cries out in exasperation the fourth time I drag her by the strap of her bookbag to the third floor corridor. I hiss a warning as Professor Grubbly-Plank hurries by, a rather battered pointed hat clamped firmly over graying hair. She doesn't spare us a glance. I follow her progress down the hallway with my eyes, wondering if she's developed that nasty limp as a psychosomatic response to the strain of sharing Care of Magical Creatures classes with Professor Hagrid.
Then again, if she's sharing classes with Hagrid the limp is probably real.
Violet snaps her fingers in front of my face to get my attention.
"Come on then," she sighs. "While the coast is clear."
I do my best to hold back a manic grin as I unlatch the door.
"You're getting quite good with that incendio charm, you know," I say conversationally as we lean against the wall, catching our breath and trying to rid our lungs of the faded but still filthy stench that lingers in one of the passages. Violet says it might be troll, and I'm inclined to believe her.
"I still can't believe you did that the first time with no wand," she groans, clutching her side.
"I had practice."
"Yeah, well, I wish you'd practice your wizard's chess. That was a close call—"
"That was not a close call. I knew exactly what I was doing."
"And I'm a pixie."
I glance at her tiny frame and messy curls. I'm nearly half a head taller than her, and not particularly large for my age. "Actually…"
"Oh, shut it."
I shut it, but I can't keep from breaking into a grin. I just know there's a mystery to be solved here…
Violet cuts into my thoughts. "I've been thinking, Annie. Why d'you suppose all of this is still down here?"
"What—the chess set and vines and—"
"Yeah. They were set here to guard something ages ago, it must be gone now. You said the dog—"
"Isn't it obvious?"
She glares. "No."
"Well, it's possible they just couldn't be bothered to undo the spellwork, and this is more or less storage space. But that doesn't make sense—you don't just leave deadly traps lying around in a school full of children—"
"—unless you count the Whomping Willow, the Chamber of Secrets, the forest full of acromantulas, and Hagrid's classes. Geez, I've spent my whole life questioning Xander's Hogwarts stories and he didn't even get to the good stuff."
I ignore her, plowing on. It's hardly a risk if everyone knows about it—not that anyone aside from the headmistress actually knows where the Chamber of Secrets is. Yet.
"So the traps are obviously still meant to be guarding something. That."
"Again with the mirror…"
"Do you have a better explanation?" I step forward, lighting my wand, examining the mirror for the thousandth time and feeling it, for the thousandth time, resisting. Hiding something from me.
"You've tried every charm known to wizardkind, plus several that aren't. It's perfectly ordinary. Who in Merlin's name would hide a mirror?"
"You tell me, pureblood girl." I raise my eyes to the top of the mirror, two feet above my head, to the inscription. Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi. It doesn't exactly take a genius to decode that.
"Weird though, that the protection is so flimsy compared to before. It's like they don't want to chance a fuss. And they obviously don't expect students to venture here, so they're protecting it from someone specific. Someone with prior knowledge. Or…"
"Fascinating." Violet sounds less enthralled than me in Astronomy class.
"But why not take more precautions? Some sort of alarm or…"
"Annie." With exasperation. "I'm going now, I told Michael I'd meet up for Exploding Snap half an hour ago."
"Michael? You hang out with that creep?" I start to examine the molded frame, leaning in close to rap a knuckle against the tarnished bronze.
"Only when my best friend is sitting in a cellar admiring her reflection."
"—Admiring my reflection?"
But by the time I register the words and lift my eyes from the frame, Violet is gone.
I stayed in the chamber longer than I meant to, and then swung by the library to pick up some books on enchanting inanimate objects, so I'm not surprised by either Violet's absence from the common room or the scorch marks on the walls. She's had ample time to explode most of our year by now.
Sure enough, Violet's voice sounds from the dormitory as I make my way up the stairs. I freeze like a deer in headlights. I've never heard her speak in such a tone.
"...don't know who the hell you think you are anymore!"
Adriana's reply is impatient. "I've known you since we were both in diapers, Violet. All I'm asking is why you spend all your time with her."
"Because I like her, you snake. What's the matter with that?"
"No one asked you to adopt the freak."
"Maybe not," says Violet coldly. "But you're asking for a punch to the throat right about now."
"Vi…"
"Shut up, Cassi!"
"See?" Adriana sneers. "Even the pacifist is on my side. Daph, tell her what you told me. About all that Muggle crap."
Inaudible muttering by Daphne.
"Who cares?" Violet again. "Adri, you told me you weren't like that."
"Like what, exactly?" asks Adriana softly.
"You know what. Or, should I say, you know who."
Sharp gasps from Daphne and Cassiopeia.
"How dare you," comes Adriana's voice, shaking. "You're one of them, then?"
"A Muggle-lover?" Sharp and defiant. "Yes, I think I am. And what's any of this got to do with a half-blood, even if you hate her?"
"You know I haven't got anything against half-bloods-or even Mudbloods," Adriana asserts. "But they don't have to wave it in our faces at Hogwarts. Ooh, look at me, my mum can't do magic and somehow that's cool now! Daphne doesn't pull that crap."
A creak of bedsprings. I can only imagine Daphne's discomfort.
Violet's voice drops. "Is that what this is really about, then?"
"Do tell," snaps Adriana.
"I'm talking about your lot not ruling wizarding Britain anymore."
A sudden thump, and Cassi's voice, this time calling out "Adri!"
"You're a pureblood too, Violet! Or by 'my lot' do you mean Death Eaters?!"
Violet's voice, muffled but defiant, "By your lot I mean anyone who agrees with You-Know-Who. Say it again, Adri, make sure your best friend hears it. You're okay with Muggles as long as you don't have to shake hands with one, right?"
"Like you know any Muggles," Adriana sulks.
"Maybe I don't, but I recognize a human being when I see one. Do you know, Andrea told me, there are people who wouldn't see me as human just because I'm black?"
"That's idiotic."
"Of course it is. And it's just what you sound like."
"So Andrea can barely tell you who Harry Potter is, but she knows all that Muggle crap? And you still deny she's a weirdo?"
"She wasn't raised by her da. And I can't believe you're so threatened by a few comments about ecktronics. It's pathetic."
Those remarks were made before Violet's bone-chilling revelation the other night. I suppose it was too much to hope that they'd passed unnoticed by my other Housemates.
"I'm not threatened, but she's obviously showing off on purpose, to rub it in our faces that she's different. At Hogwarts, in Slytherin House, of all places. It's disrespectful. If she was really as smart as Flitwick keeps saying, she'd drop that Muggle crap and learn dueling or something."
"If you don't keep your mouth shut, you'll need to brush up on dueling yourself," says Violet tightly. I decide I've let her fight this battle for me long enough.
I paste a bland expression on my face and take the last few steps into the dormitory. Violet's face is puffy and furious. Adriana's pale skin is flushed. Cassi is nowhere in sight, having drawn the curtains around her four-poster, and Daphne bounces her leg against the ground looking as though she might cry.
"Evening," I say as I brush by them. "Violet, I was looking up a new spell in the library. Locomotor Mortis. Want to try it out tomorrow?"
I pick a spell at random out of the air. Violet's brows shoot up. We taught one another the far more useful Petrificus Totalus a month ago. But now, especially given the dueling comment, she knows I overheard the conversation. Adriana, however, still has to guess. Her eyes flicker between the two of us as I pull on my pajama bottoms, expression absolutely neutral.
"Sure thing, Annie," answers Violet fiercely. "I think I could do with some fresh air, too. It's getting a touch stuffy in here. Good night."
"Night," I say offhandedly, as Adriana huffs loudly and pulls shut her curtains with a snap. "I'll get the lights."
And with a wave of my wand, the glow in the dormitory dims to nothing.
