Seven Years, Chapter 33.

AN: Sorry for the chapter being late. I am simply in the middle of tearing my hair out because the latest plot twist in Hogwarts Mystery cooked my brain.


The weekend came quickly, too quickly, almost. There were whispers around all of the tables, and from what Merula heard, a great number of the older students were openly taking bets on if A.J., perhaps the most dangerous witch of her class, was going to leave enough of the Heir to be buried.

The answer, from all the whispers, seemed to be a resounding no, with several mentions of "Rakepick" and whatever it was that was inflicted on her by A.J. and the other members of the Circle of Khanna. It seemed that Rakepick, whoever she was, had simply disappeared into thin air, never to be seen again.

It was an early Saturday morning that Merula woke up to two empty beds instead of one, and when she shook Deborah awake her last remaining roommate had no idea what had happened to A.J. herself, though even a thorough search of the castle, even the infirmary with a frozen stiff Tiffany yielded no sign of A.J.

Lockhart, for his part, was still very much alive and about, no doubt enjoying his last days before someone, probably A.J., got to him and saw to it that the jinx continued for yet another year.

And yet, surprisingly given that the search for her was a complete waste of time, when Merula returned to her room, A.J. was waiting, looking grim and ragged, with two small canvas bags on the bed next to her, one of which was still moving, with something inside it frantically thrashing against the bag.

"Where-" Merula swallowed as she glanced down at the moving bag for a long moment before she cast her eyes aside. "Where were you?"

"Forbidden Forest," A.J. replied,her tone betraying nothing. "We can get to training later, but I intend to start the potion today."

Merula cast her eyes away from the struggling figure inside the bag. She had no intention of asking what was in the bag, and she certainly had no intention of figuring out what A.J. intended to do with the unlucky thing inside the bag.

"If you must know," A.J. 's voice was neutral, yet somehow colder than the Scottish winter. "That is a rabbit inside the bag. And I'm going to teach your first lesson with it."

Merula swallowed, suddenly uncomfortable with the idea of working a rabbit into a lesson plan, especially one taught by her roommate. "I don't understand."

"You don't need to." A.J. said simply, shaking her head as she placed the cleaned Wellingtons off to the side. "All you have to do is watch."

Merula paused. "Do I… want to?"

"No," A.J. said, tilting her head, as if debating the pros and cons of the question. "But that's the point."

And she said nothing more. Not through breakfast, not through lunch.

It was only when the sun was beginning to set did Merula receive a tiny whisper from A.J., who walked out of the Great Hall and out into the mid February afternoon, complete with a rosy pink sky and temperatures just above freezing.

Merula followed slowly, carefully tracing her steps behind A.J. and avoiding the places where the last of the year's snowfall was melting and turning the ground into thick mud.

A.J., with her legs protected by a pair of long, waterproof Wellingtons she had found somewhere, moved quickly, though she stopped from time to time to allow Merula to catch up, leaning against various trees until Merula tossed caution to the wind and simply ran after her roommate, though her toes were freezing in half melted snow and ice and her legs became heavy with ugly grey mud.

"Where are we going?" Merula shivered as she finally caught up with her roommate. They were deep within the Forbidden Forest and the light was fading fast.

"Not much further now," A.J. replied, though she glanced back the way they had come one more time before she turned off the main path and down an even deeper side path, extending a hand for Merula to hold on to. "Come now. We're almost there."

Merula took the offered hand, but she yelped in surprise when she realized how freezing cold her roommate was, as if the hand extended toward her was that of a frozen corpse.

"You're-"

"Cold," A.J. finished with a shake of her head and retracting her offered hand, slamming her heel into the ground and knocking away a splatter gray mud from the soles of her boots. "I know. Working outside in this weather isn't exactly pleasant."

Merula pulled back too, and they stood in silence together for a minute.

"If you want to change the terms of our deal, I could do that." A.J. said with a shrug, breaking the silence. "The lake isn't frozen over anymore, and the bribe money Higgs took should still be at the bottom… somewhere. But I would hope that you still come with me, at least for this afternoon."

"Why?" Merula asked.

"Experience." A.J. replied with a grimace, her eyes burrowing into Merula's own for a long moment before she continued. "Once the Circle met their original objectives, well, met is a strong word for being stuck with a broken door, but once we reached that point, we had no way to go further and no intention to do so."

Merula raised an eyebrow, but decided to not press her roommate on the specifics of their past events, and instead she focused on the present. "So what do you mean by experience?"

A.J. looked at her for a moment, her fingers drumming against a tree, clearly deep in thought. "The golden generation that graduated the year before you arrived at Hogwarts dispatched R, and went on with their lives." A.J. sighed before she continued, shaking her head as she spoke. "It wasn't until the… incident with Voldemort that we realized we needed to keep Hogwarts protected past our graduation, and by then, we had maybe the Weasley twins, me, and Cedric left who were capable of acting. Not exactly a good place to start rebuilding an organization devoted to fighting dark wizards."

Merula nodded, connecting the dots. "There's something you want to show me then, that… Hogwarts will not."

"Correct," A.J. replied. "It will be unpleasant, but it's a lesson for anyone who intends to fight the Dark Arts, not that you've had a competent teacher so far."

Merula shivered. "And what is the lesson?"

A.J. remained silent before she shook her head. "Innocence is no different than weakness."

Merula looked up at her roommate. "Are you saying that I'm…"

"Yes," A.J. replied. "You've seen more than your peers your age, but none of you are ready for the real world yet, and while you still have time, a lesson taught by Voldemort or Rakepick or that bastard Shiratori will be far worse than a comparable lesson that I will teach."

"I doubt any of them will ever get to teach a lesson at-," Merula muttered under her breath, but she stopped when a ghoulish smirk crossed her friend's face, as if she had unknowingly said something hilarious.

"Shiratori perhaps not," A.J. said with a shrug. "But both of the other two have walked through the halls of Hogwarts as Defence Professors, and only Voldemort needed to wear a turban."

Merula felt a chilly breeze run across her body and gnaw at her bones, and she thought of Lockhart. He wasn't Voldemort, he wasn't "Rakepick", whoever that was, and from all appearances he was a clown. But he also had powerful magic at his side. Tiffany, a competent witch just a few months away from her NEWTs, and the scrambled memories of the Weasley brat were evidence enough.

And if she walked away from A.J. and the lesson she had to teach, what protection did she have against him? Against the threats that might loom out of the fog of tomorrow?

Did she really have a choice?

"Ok," Merula closed her eyes for a moment before she gave her answer. "What is it that you intend to show me?"

"The results of a spell," A.J. said, pausing for a moment as she turned away from Merula and walked down the narrow and muddy path. "And the start of a potion."

Merula followed her roommate slowly, down the path, crushing long-dead leaves and passing through trees with snapped branches- no doubt the work of A.J., until she reached what seemed to be a clearing, one that was unremarkable apart from a small circle of dark stones pressed into the earth, a tall plastic bucket, and a rabbit struggling against the effects of Levicorpus hanging over it.

"Not all potions are as easy as the things you make in class." A.J. said, her voice soft as she walked over to the bucket and glanced down, nodding to herself as she did so. "But this one… if the stories are correct, then people have slaughtered each other for the mere knowledge of how to make this stuff."

Merula shivered. "Where did you learn that?"

"I did a report for History of Magic," A.J. replied, pausing again before she turned to Merula. "This potion is exceptionally dangerous if misused, but that can be said for all magic. It's just that there is a… exceptionally bloody history attached to this potion and how the formula came to be."

Merula shivered again. "What sort of spell did you want to show me?"

In response, as if she was waiting for the question, A.J. raised her wand and pointed it to the rabbit, whispering some spell Merula couldn't hear under her breath.

There was a split second of silence, but then A.J.'s spell bore its fruit. For a moment, Merula couldn't tell that anything had changed, but the sudden appearance of a deep, clean gash against the rabbit's throat and a gush of dark blood that spilled from the wound disavowed her of that opinion.

Merula screamed and scrambled back from the convulsing animal and the spray of dark blood that spilled from it, raising her arms to protect herself from the blood, even as she stumbled and landed in the mud.

A.J., for her part, stood in silence, watching Merula before she said a single word. "Stand."

Merula didn't understand until her roommate pulled her up, flickering her wand and casting away the mud on Merula. "Merula, look at the rabbit."

Merula didn't understand, but slowly, hesitantly, she turned and looked at the rabbit.

It was dead, of course, but there was little blood left inside of it, through the coppery smell lingered in the air, thick and crushing. It had been under a minute between A.J. 's almost half-hearted spell and the scene of horror before Merula's eyes, and yet Merula had to actively fight the fact that her stomach was revolting.

There had only been a single, clean cut that had nearly decapitated the little animal, though with the way the rabbit had sagged the wound looked far more like a gigantic, toothless maw performing a maniacal laugh than the initial cut that could have been a line drawn with a quill.

And perhaps most disturbing of all, despite the spell having just been cast, there was almost no more blood left in the body, with just a tiny trickle still pooling into the bucket.

"That," A.J.'s voice cut in. "Was Sectumsempra."

Merula looked to her roommate, and then back at the dead rabbit, leaking the last of its blood into the bucket below.

"The blood," Merula suddenly understood. "It's for your potion."

"Correct," A.J. said. "Now, watch carefully."

Merula turned her eyes over to A.J., almost afraid that she was going to do something horrible again, but the new spell was far gentler, with her wand dancing in a long, winding circle, complete with three tiny, barely noticeable twists midair, with an incantation almost like a song, loving and almost mournful.

And the gaping cut that had killed the rabbit began to knit together again. And within a minute, the rabbit looked alive again, even though Merula knew it was dead, with only a single, pale line drawn across the neck of the dead rabbit that betrayed the killing spell.

"Vulnera Sanentur," A.J. said, meeting Merula's eyes. "Consider it homework for this… lesson, because it is a spell I will demand that you master before your continue any further."

Merula looked at her roommate. "And what about you?"

"The potion's first stage is not yet finished." A.J. replied with a flick of her wrist. "But the next step contains little of educational value. As such, you are welcome to leave."

Merula nodded before she turned back to the path that led to the school proper, dreading the long walk back alone. "Can I watch?"

A.J. paused before she pulled one foot up, casting a cleaning charm that wiped away mud and long-dead leaves. "It's not particularly interesting, but very well."

Merula frowned. "What are-"

She never got to finish the sentence, not when her roommate brought a heavy boot down into the bucket of rabbit blood, raised it, and then stomped once again.

There was something sharp, almost tangy, like a tomato that filled the air. At first, Merula mistook it for the blood, but as she leaned in close she could tell that there was something distinct about it, even if she had no idea what it was.

"Nightshade. A single drop of the stuff will kill you dead." A.J. said, breaking the silence after she had finished with the bucket, a mixture of dark, coppery blood and some other darker, stickier substance dripping from her boot. "But to make this potion, I have little other choice."

"Huh," Merula muttered. "And this potion…"

"Will be usable in roughly a month's time if all goes well." A.J. replied, casting the cleaning spell once again, wiping away the dark blood and crushed berry juice from green rubber. "I will see to it that it is stored properly, but we'll have to go our separate ways first."

Merula pouted, but A.J. simply shook her head. "That's not something I will compromise on, as much as it might be disappointing for you. Now run along."

Merula had a head start on her trip back to the castle, but even with the foul smelling bucket weighing her down, A.J. passed her halfway, and Merula didn't see her again after that.


It was starting to get dark by the time Merula got back to Hogwarts, with the orange-pink sky replaced by a deep violet with hints of sun that were chased from the horizon with every step Merula took.

It was close to dinner time, but Merula was tired, dirty, and her socks, soaked by icy slush on her trip to the forest, still clung to her frozen feet. She would have to warm herself up first, and then likely bathe before she ate, if she had time at all.

And so, with the objective of avoiding as many of her peers as possible, Merula headed down the secret staircase, pulling back the curtain after making sure the room was deserted and muttering the password under her breath.

"Lumos," Merula whispered as the tip of her wand lit up, forcing back the darkness and allowing her to traverse the dusty staircase into the dungeons.

At the bottom of the staircase, Merula muttered the password yet again, pulling at the heavy painting that led into the corridor.

A corridor that was not empty. Not in the slightest.

Joseph Trent looked up from a book he had been reading and flashed a smile. "Merula."

"Trent," Merula replied, wincing for a moment when she heard how harsh she sounded. "I mean, Joseph."

Joseph nodded. "It's good to see you. I hope that your classes-"

"Tiffany," Merula replied, cutting off Trent before he could finish.

Joseph nodded at that. "That was one half of the news that I intended to bring to you. The Mandrake potion is well on its way to completion, not that the Heir needs to know. Could you pass that message on to A.J.?"

Merula nodded as she stepped past the painting, letting it fall into place behind her. "I'll let her know when I have the chance."

Joseph paused. "You haven't seen her?"

Merula thought, at least for a moment, to tell him what A.J. had done, with the dead rabbit, the crushed Belladonna, but then she decided against it. It wasn't her place to tell Joseph, especially with how secretive her roommate was about the whole thing.

And yet as Merula turned over to lie, she felt a buzzing headache, minor at first, but having rapidly spiralled out of control when she met his eyes.

"I-" Merula stammered, tearing her eyes away from Trent and resting her head against the wall, letting the cool stone soothe her sudden headache. "I- uhh-"

But even that seemed unnecessary, for the pain had disappeared as quickly as it had come, and Merula could focus her thoughts once more.

"I haven't seen A.J." Merula said. It was, by all standards, technically true, if she was referring to the last hour. She certainly had no idea where her roommate went, and she had no interest in finding out. "But I'll pass your message."

"Wait," Joseph cut in before Merula could dart around him. "The second order of business is far more important, and I'd need to know where A.J. is."

Merula bit her lip. Her roommate had disappeared into thin air, bucket full of potion and all. She was about to admit that to Joseph when another headache hit her, this one far worse than the other one.

"I-" Merula stammered, steadying herself against the wall. "I last saw her outside, but I have no idea where she is now."

"She was outside,"Joseph crossed his arms. "Doing what exactly?"

Merula said nothing. She couldn't, not without spilling the truth, so she simply shook her head.

"Merula," Joseph's voice was harsh and firm. "I need to know."

Merula shook her head and turned to leave. "I'm not telling."

Joseph was silent for a moment. "She killed that rabbit, didn't she?"

Merula slipped on her step and tripped painfully into the staircase, the impact knocking a yelp out of her. When she managed to spin around, her knee still screaming in pain, there was only one question on her mind. "How did you know that?"

"I looked into your memories." Joseph said, shaking his head. "Your headaches just now were a side effect of the spell. It's a form of magic called Legilimency, and while I'd rather avoid using it against anyone, I needed to find A.J. quickly."

"Why?" Merula asked. "What makes you so desperate to find her?"

"I have a bad feeling she'll go too far with whatever she's doing." Joseph explained. "That, and there's only a very small number of potions that need rabbit blood, and none of them are good."

"Like?" Merula's curiosity was piqued, and while she boiled with indignation at her mind being read, all she could think of was her friend's warning, that she wasn't ready for whatever the future had in store for her. Not an hour since the warning had someone invaded her memories for information she wasn't willing to give.

"What else did she do?" Joseph asked, inching closer, holding his breath. "Apart from the rabbit?"

Merula hesitated to provide the answer, but the headaches returned, and she did the first thing she could think of and punched an advancing Joseph in the nose.

It worked, surprisingly well, as a matter of fact. Joseph Trent, for all his skill, jerked back from the blow, staggering against the wall behind him and his hands rushing to his face.

"Sorry," Merula muttered, half hoping the Auror was alright, and half hoping he wouldn't curse her for what she did.

"My apologies," Joseph winced, staggering to his feet and rubbing his nose. "I shouldn't have tried that."

Merula swallowed and closed her eyes. "She was crushing some sort of berry out in the forest. She called it Nightshade, whatever that means."

"What?" Joseph's voice hissed, and when Merula opened her eyes again his eyes were wide. "Wait- she's brewing Veritaserum?"

"She didn't tell me what she was brewing," Merula muttered, not recognizing the name of the potion. "All that she said was that people had killed each other for the potion formula."

"She's not wrong," Joseph nodded, letting out a long and slow breath before continuing, as if he understood that Merula was confused. "Veritaserum does have an exceptionally bloody history. Still, it was not what I expected her to be brewing. Veritaserum is usually brewed with cattle blood, but I suppose rabbit blood is what she had on hand."

"I see," Merula muttered. "Do you think you can find where she is?"

Joseph paused for a moment, his lips drawn into a hard line. "Veritaserum needs to be brewed in careful, cold conditions. Which means that…"

"What?" Merula asked.

"I don't doubt she has the skills to bring down the Knight," Joseph muttered, seemingly to himself as he paced across the cold dungeon floor, stopping before he looked up into Merula's eyes. "Merula, if you intend to follow me to find A.J. , I need you to promise that you will never try to access this… secret after today."

Merula raised an eyebrow. "I don't understand. What secret are you talking about?"

Joseph licked his lips and glanced behind them at the patch of wall that led down to Slytherin. "A.J. seems to be using one of the Cursed Vaults as her personal… What is the Muggle term? Refrigerator?"

"I don't know what that is," Merula pointed out.

"It keeps Muggle food cold," Joseph shook his head. "Just as, if my theory is right, A.J. is using the first of the Cursed Vaults to keep her Veritaserum cold. Just as well. Nobody else would be insane enough to use Cursed Ice to make potions."

"No one else," Merula agreed. "Shall we… go?"

Joseph Trent didn't respond, but he began to climb the stairs up, his eyes darting around, as if he expected further company, but for once, the school seemed deserted, and Merula followed him down a dizzying row of corridors and into the depths of the school, with no shortage of detours as they dodged stray students and couples snogging in dark corridors.

It was some fifteen minutes later, on the fifth floor of the castle, that Joseph stopped before a dead end, a stone wall no different than any other and turned back to face Merula. "This is it now. Whatever you see here, I need you to promise that you'll never try this without one of us here to watch over you."

Merula nodded, and she took a step back as Joseph Trent raised his arm. "Revelio!"

All of a sudden, the wall was gone, as if it had never existed, and out, from somewhere up above, flew a flash of ice coloured metal that struck Joseph in the face.

Merula jumped back and prepared to run, but a low, dangerous chuckle emerged from the staircase, followed by the legs of her roommate, starting with the same pair of dark green boots Merula had seen earlier, now covered in a thin sheet of what seemed to be frost.

"Really Trent?" A.J. sighed as she descended from the staircase, the wall reappearing behind her as soon as she stepped clear and onto Joseph Trent, pressing one icy boot into the middle of the Auror's chest. "Turning the last of my friends against me?"

"In my defense," Merula added quickly. "He used Legi-uhm."

"You're using Legilimency?" A.J. hissed, seeming to apply even more pressure into Joseph's chest as her voice dropped to a murderous degree. "Against a twelve year old? By Merlin, what is wrong with you?"

"You shouldn't be making Veritaserum," Joseph gasped, tossing the icy piece of metal off his head and rubbing his face. "And you shouldn't be throwing parts of the Ice Knight around."

"Then how else do you propose I deal with Lockhart?" A.J. growled, finally removing her foot from his chest. "What? Are you going to poke into his head? He'll drop dead from the headache long before you get an answer out of him. And how do you intend to get Tiffany's last year back, if Lockhart took her NEWT answers out of her?"

"There are legal ways to do-"

"Says the man who left Rakepick to die in the Sunken Vault," A.J. sneered, crossing her arms and leaning back against the wall. "Tell me, what happened to your justice then? What do you have to say to poor Barnaby? He was practically disowned for saving what's left of her."

Joseph Trent said nothing, but his breathing was ragged, and he barely managed to stagger to his feet.

"Merula," A.J. barked, wordlessly casting the same spell that revealed the staircase again and tossing the icy piece of armour back inside. "Come on. We're going. And Trent?"

Merula took a quick glance at Joseph Trent and the dark bruise that was forming on half of his handsome face, but said nothing, in no mood to invite her roommate's wrath.

"If you want any solace, I only intend for Lockhart to drink this stuff. But otherwise stay out of my way."


Pre-AN AN: Shoutout to the magical microwave, which kills laughter dead. Also slapstick comedy is always funny to me.

AN: So, uhm, the funny bit is out of the way. The director and "R".

I remembered the fact that Merula had an aunt who... left her alone in an isolated house somewhere with Death Eaters hate mail. I just thought she wanted nothing to do with the situation but oh boy. And don't get me started on "Peregrine".

What. The. ****.

I'm going to finish volume one of this book along my original plotline, that much is certain (only 7 more chapters before the story ends, and unless I rewrite the whole thing I'm not going to be able to accurately reflect this new plot twist), but I'll need to tinker with the plot of volume 2 significantly, however, because in my opinion this plot twist changes canon Merula's personality to a rather disturbing degree.

However, I will not start publishing part 2 of the series until at least December, because I will be starting grad school in the fall, and I will need time to plan out my outline to a far more developed degree (to avoid disasters like chapter 13).

I will also need beta readers. I lost my starting one to college and I've been running blind without a replacement (with track wrecks like chapter 13 being the result). Apply in the comments section or dm me please.

Next time: Easter Holidays