Every night, every time she fell asleep, Rebekah was brought back into the room with young Tom Riddle. They had conversations of different natures each night and it was becoming a habit. Luckily, Rebekah only slept six hours on those nights and woke up completely refreshed and alert.

For the next few days, people kept an annoyingly close eye on Rebekah. If she was in her dorm, one of the girls always checked on her hourly, and if she went to the library, someone went with her. It made it difficult to use the Time-Turner because they always looked for her.

"Sir, you need to sort this out, please!" Rebekah stormed into the office after Snape allowed her in. She sat on the chair and plucked her shoulder down. "I've had enough of them following me around. I can't very well continue doing all of my classes and all of my studying if I have their eyes, and every other teacher's on me."

Snape brought his hands to his face and pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing. "I can't very well tell your friends to stop looking out for you, can I?"

"You can but it's just not polite," Rebekah admitted, quaking a shoulder. "They continuously try and find a way to spend more time with me than normal. I spend every lesson and break time with them already. I've been forced to resort to hiding in the Chamber."

"Chamber?"

"Chamber of Secrets, sir,"

"Hm," He folded his hands across his chest, reminding her of his Animagus form ruffling his feathers. "I suggest you find a way to work around your schedule, your Time Turner will help. I will write you a note that says that Emperor has to stay with you, even in lessons. He is a Familiar and thus he has the instincts to protect you if the need arises." He went to his desk and wrote on a scroll of parchment, handing it unopened to Rebekah. "This will ensure that the teachers will not interfere with you, also making your friends relax and hopefully leave you alone more often."

She nodded once, smiling. "Thank you, sir. I've been trying all week and nothing has worked, short of avoiding them completely."

After a long Quidditch practise, Rebekah and Draco were a whole ten minutes late to Defense Against the Dark Arts. They walked in and Rebekah paused. Why was Snape here?

"Where's Lupin?"

"Professor Lupin is feeling too ill to teach today," Snape said, a glint in his eyes. Rebekah raised her chin in acknowledgement and sat down quickly.

Snape looked around the class. "As I was saying before Miss Potter interrupted, Professor Lupin has not left any record of the topics you have covered so far."

"Please, sir, we've done Boggarts, Red Caps, Kappas, and Grindylows," Hermione raised her hand. "And we're just about to start —"

"Silence, I did not ask for information. I was merely commenting on Professor Lupin's lack of organization."

"He's the best Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher we've ever had," Dean Thomas said, and there was a murmur of agreement from the rest of the class.

"You are easily satisfied. Lupin is hardly overtaxing you; I would expect first years to be able to deal with Red Caps and Grindylows. Today we shall discuss —" Snape flipped to the very back of the textbook, the chapters where they haven't covered."— Werewolves."

How could she have forgotten? Last month. Rebekah couldn't find Lupin at all. It seemed like he completely blocked the day before the full moon, and he was hardly able to teach the day after.

"Hermione, don't even try to argue," Rebekah said without looking, then she turned her head slowly to look at the Gryffindor girl. "There's no point, he's the teacher, we're the students. Pardon my interruption, sir."

"Turn to page 394." He glanced around again. "All of you! Now!"

Rebekah stroked the pages of her book and tossed a bunch of pages, quickly turning to the right page.

"Which of you can tell me how we distinguish between the Werewolf and the true wolf?" Snape said.

Hermione's hand went straight up.

"No one?" Snape said. He was bullying the class again, as he always did. Rebekah sighed and raised her hand. "Potter, answer please."

"A shifted Werewolf has a shorter snout and more human-like eyes. The main difference between a wolf and a Werewolf is that a wolf won't hunt humans usually and a Werewolf hunts Humans exclusively. The Werewolf is not dangerous to any other creature because only a human can be turned," Rebekah kept her gaze to her desk before pulling it up to Snape's cold one.

"Good,"

Rebekah could hear Hermione and Ron whisper under their breaths. How unfair it was that Rebekah got chosen when she put her hand up and Hermione didn't. It shouldn't be like that, everyone should have an equal go at answering but if Rebekah put her hand up, she always got called on. All the teachers knew that Rebekah knew the answers, so why did they pick her so much?

Rebekah turned around sharply, sneering, "Perhaps because I don't spit the information straight from the textbook like you, Hermione. And I don't interrupt the teachers all the time if I don't get called on, nor do I wave my hand around obnoxiously to gain attention. We all know that you know the answers, you don't need to flaunt it."

"Why doesn't anyone else put their hands up then?" She tried to make a point.

"Because we know you will," Blaise rolled his eyes. "Some of us already know the answers and others, not going to name names, aren't bothered to open their textbook and find it. They have you, they don't need to try."

Hermione flushed with anger. "Well, at least I participate,"

"And not allow anyone else to,"

She looked like she was going to reply but Snape interrupted.

"Enough," He said, raising a lip in distaste. "But they aren't wrong. Make notes on Werewolves for the rest of the lesson, in silence."

The next day was the Quidditch match. For the last two weeks, they had been training nonstop, mostly in the mornings when it was the coldest and everything was a bit harder to do.

The match was worse.

When Rebekah mounted her broom, it swayed. The roaring thunder clouds brought in extreme winds that almost knocked some of the tiny First years as they bustled up the stands to support their respective Houses. Even with her Nimbus Two Thousand and One, it still twitched in the air as the wind blew strongly.

She tried to stay steady on her broom but it was easier to go with the wind. It was great luck that she caught sight of the Snitch in the same direction as the wind went. The rain pelted against the ground and caused an echo of each lightning strike.

Stopping in mid-air, Rebekah closed her eyes and relished in the thunder. Several storms ago, Rebekah had shifted into her lioness form for the first time. The freedom she felt was a simple echo to the cold rain that soaked her to the very bone.

She was cold but she was free.

Flashing her eyes open, she quickly caught sight of the Snitch and bolted past the red figures. She hummed in annoyance when a flash of green made her lose it again. She stopped her broom before she could barge into a Gryffindor.

"For God's sake!" Rebekah said and barely dodged the oncoming Bludger soaring over her shoulder. "Faster. Where is it?"

Rebekah went under Diggory as he went the other way. She was determined to win again. She had never lost a match to date and she wasn't going to allow it if she could help it.

With a strike of brilliant lightning, a silhouette flashed across the clouds. A colossal hound, with massive ears, snout and plenty of shaggy hair. It reminded her of Sirius' Animagus form and how Emperor and he played together.

Her heartbeat was strong within her chest and she forced her adrenaline into her movements. She watched the golden streak zap upwards and followed it, even with the wind and rain beating against her face. She had luckily made her goggles water-resistant and it had helped immensely

Rebekah ignored how the stadium turned silent suddenly, she'd ask why later or find out herself. She faltered. Did she go deaf? The wind didn't roar, nor did the thunder make an echo. Rebekah was still focused on the Snitch, refusing to question anything until it was within her grasp. It folded nicely and Rebekah grinned like a cat.

Something moved below her as she came to a halt. That something wasn't a thing, it was things. A hundred Dementors congregated below her and watched her as fear welled into her chest. Cold dread went through her limbs as shivers made her flinch.

Her eyes teared at the screams. Some screamed inside her head, too familiar and yet she didn't know. For the first time, she didn't know. Rebekah's heart leapt to her throat and she choked, tears barely registered as warmth against her cheeks.

"Not Rebekah! Not her! Please not Rebekah!"

"Stand aside, you silly girl. Stand aside, now. . . ."

"Not Rebekah, please no, take me, kill me instead,"

Numb.

The need to protect.

The drive for familiarity.

Whoever she was going to die, was going to be murdered.

The wind whipped against her back as she began to fall, unmoving and with limbs clutching the Snitch close.

"Not Rebekah! Please have mercy. Have mercy. . . ."

Shrill laughs.

A woman's scream.

Rebekah was dropping to the ground with a single word on her lips.

"No!"

"NO!" Rebekah screamed as she sat up. She heaved as Madam Pomfrey quickly pulled her back down and allowed Emperor to jump onto her lap. She clutched Emperor to her chest and he allowed her to do so, completely trying to relax her as Fidele slithered up to lay at the foot of the bed.

"You really do need to be comforted," Flint's voice said, making Rebekah look up and almost yell at him.

"YOU TRY BEING SURROUNDED BY A HUNDRED DEMENTORS, THEN FALL, AND SEE HOW YOU FEEL AFTER THAT!" Rebekah yelled, her eyes flashing a brighter green. Emperor buried his head into her neck as she let her instincts tell her she was safe.

Safe.

No harm.

Harm gone.

It took her a minute but Rebekah regained her senses eventually and was able to look up. Her friends stood around her, quite concerned and relieved that she was alright.

"I'm… I'm fine," Rebekah tried to regain control over her rapid heartbeat. With heaved breaths in and out. "I just need rest. Yes, I think that'll be good. Broom? Broom. Where's my broom?"

There was a huddle of fabric and sticks by the side of her bed. Theodore picked it up and showed her broken broom, her expensive, broken broom. "It flew away after you began to fall, straight into the Whomping Willow and you know how the Willow is. Professor Flitwick brought it up just before you came around."

"Great," She spat. "I'll need to order a new broom but I've got the Two Thousand for now." Rebekah turned to Flint who stood to the side and spoke with the rest of the team. "And the match?"

He nodded, approvingly. "We won. How did you get the Snitch?"

"I just knew something was wrong, I went temporarily deaf and that told me. I had the Snitch within my view and told myself that I couldn't allow this match to be the first one I lose," Rebekah shivered and Emperor snuggled closer, becoming slightly larger and fluffier. "I grasped it before I looked down and saw all of them. I don't like losing."

"That's the spirit," Flint grasped a hand on her shoulder before dismissing the team to let her rest.

Tom scoffed, almost impressed. "So you broke your Time Turner?"

"Well, it's not broken, the rules around it have been bent perhaps, but it's not broken," Rebekah touched her sternum where the Time-Turner would have sat in the waking world, feeling it empty. "A simple Repario did the trick."

"But caused it to allow you to go back twenty-four hours, a full day, instead of the meagre five normally allowed?"

"Granger won't be happy if I were to tell her; Rebekah, you should give it back! You don't know what could happen because you messed with it!" Rebekah said, doing an imitation of Hermione Granger's angry screech of disappointment when something wasn't fair. "Of course, I won't tell her. She'd go behind my back to get everything to be fair again. If it's not fair for everyone, it's wrong."

"Life isn't fair,"

"She's a MuggleBorn, all she's ever known in our world is that everything isn't fair for her kind," Rebekah sighed. "Even for HalfBloods, it's difficult. She's trying to be something she's not, she doesn't want to know Magic just to know it, she wants to show everyone that being a MuggleBorn doesn't change anything and it doesn't! It just feels like sacrilege against Magic itself. I want to know Magic because that's part of me, I was born with it and I should do whatever Magic permits."

"And what about MudBloods?"

"Magic has decided to allow them the ability to wield it, there really isn't a difference between a PureBlood's and a MuggleBorn's abilities. One just had a better chance to excel because they have been around Magic for their whole lives."

"What of people like you and I?"

"Oh, Tommy," Rebekah said, watching his face twitch with anger at his nickname. "There are no people like us. We're a different breed of Magic. Right now, your Magic is as Grey as grey can be. But realistically, we're not much different to anyone else, our ambitions and abilities have made a stark line between us and our friends."

"Friends isn't the right word…"

"Well, my group isn't really a group of minions like yours,"

"Why aren't they? It makes things so much simpler, having people doing the dirty work prevents it being brought back to you,"

"I don't need them to do that," Rebekah shook her head with a smile. "Fear can make you weak if you allow it to overcome you. I want my group to love me enough so that I can ask them to help me instead of forcing them as Voldemort did. I want them to be scared enough to know not to try and betray me."

"Which is it, fear or love?"

"I want them to love me enough to fear my disappointment," Rebekah smiled. "They had a taste of what I was capable of when I'm disappointed, and it didn't end well for Draco after a time."

If there were resources, Rebekah would use them as much as she could to advance herself, even if they weren't the most moral ways.