Chapter 31: Accusations

Hours went by after the troll incident. The four of them had enough excitement and went to bed early. The rest of Gryffindor were in the common room eating and talking amongst friends, giving Hermione a chance to speak freely about Phoenix's magic. "Hey, Phoenix?" Hermione whispered.

"Yeah?" Phoenix groggily answered.

"Did you mean to blow up the troll?"

Phoenix laughed remembering the looks on her friends' faces, "No, I meant to freeze him. But I got a little distracted."

"Losing focus had you blow the troll up."

"Yeah, well, he was getting annoying and loud. Someone other than Ron and Harry could have run in, and that wouldn't have been good. It could have been a professor. So, I took the chance and blew him up. But it's cool. Seeing the looks on Harry's and Ron's face was priceless."

Silence took over for a while. Phoenix let her eyelids drop, wanting sleep to take over.

"Phoenix?"

Rolling onto her stomach, Phoenix gave out an inaudible sigh in her pillow. She didn't want Hermione to hear her aggravation."Yes?"

"What type of spell did you use before we left the bathroom?"

"What do you mean, what type of spell? I thought you were smart." Phoenix let out sarcastically.

"I was hoping I was wrong."

"Wrong?"

"It was one of your wandless spells, one from your magical world?"

"Yeah, why?" Phoenix asked, getting annoyed. She wanted sleep. She loved sleep. It was one of her favorite pastimes next to painting, drawing, and sports.

"It was a cleaning spell, wasn't it? I remember coming across it when I was looking through the Book of Shadows." It wasn't a question, it was a statement.

"What does this have to do with anything? We needed the mess cleaned, so I cleaned it. We couldn't leave evidence of the troll being there," Phoenix yawned.

"Phoenix, I believe Professor McGonagall has her suspicions."

"She has no proof it was us. The spell isn't in any of the Hogwarts books or in this world."

"That spell wouldn't be personal gain, would it?"

"Is that the reason for this talk? Why I am missing my beauty sleep? Personal gain issues?"

"I was reading about it in the Book of Shadows. It is one of your Wiccan rules. When you use a spell for yourself and not for others, it counts as personal gain. Depending on how powerful the spell was or the person, personal gain would come back to you three times worse."

"Hermione, no offense, but you are new at this, "personal gain" issue. I know what I am doing. Don't worry about it. Now, can I go back to sleep?"

"I may be new at it, but I know what I read." Hermione said.

Phoenix gave another inaudible sigh. "How can it be personal gain when I tried to help Ron, Harry, and you not get caught?"

"Did you say the spell to help us? Or did you say it to keep your secret intact and not let yourself get caught? Because you have exposed some of your powers already: freezing Malfoy in front of the whole class, freezing the fallen armor while Ron, Harry, Neville, you, and myself were running from Mr. Filch, and blowing up the lamp and yelling demons when I tried to wake you up, remember?"

"Do you have a point to all of this?"

Hermione was silent. Did she have a point or not? She may have read about it, but she is not from Phoenix's world. But that didn't stop her from having theories. "Phoenix."

"Hermione, I'm losing my patients. You are not my mother. Personal Gain or not leave it to me. Now, I am tired and would like to get some sleep before Wood pounds the Quidditch team to the dirt at practice."

"Why didn't you use your wand to clean us off?"

"What?" Phoenix asked, startled by the change of subject.

"Why didn't you clean us off?"

"I wasn't planning on getting caught. I was planning on all of us going to the tower and change. Why didn't you use your wand? You knew it, and I bet Ron would have loved you for that."

"I didn't think on it. I guess it surprised me when I saw you say a spell without a wand. It is one thing to know about wandless magic but another to see it being done."

Phoenix had to think on that. She never had that problem. 'I guess it wouldn't be any different from when I first saw people use wands. I never thought about how people would react to people using wandless magic.' "If we would have cleaned everyone up, Ron would have been less miserable. What would have been the fun of that? Even though he was annoying after a while, it was still worth hearing him whine. I would have wished it was Malfoy or Parkinson in his place. That would have been worth being caught."

"I guess it would have been funny to see the looks on their faces."

"Oh, you know it would."

The crowd in the common room was dying down. They didn't have much time left to speak freely. They heard sounds of tired footsteps and giggles coming up the stairs. The older Gryffindor girls made their way pass the first year dorm.

"Hermione?"

"Yeah?"

"Before anyone comes in, do you have any more questions? Anything else to accuse me of?"

"No. I'm not accusing you of anything."

"Well then, I'm going to sleep." Phoenix said ignoring the last comment Hermione gave.

As soon as they stopped their conversation, the other first year Gryffindor girls came bursting in the dorm. Phoenix placed her pillow over her head, blocking out their noises. It was taking longer for Phoenix to fall asleep. Then everyone died down as soft snoring took over the dorm. Phoenix finally went to sleep.