Out of the Shadow
Over the next few days, I learned all about the Twins new inventions that they gave me for Christmas, along with making plans to continue harassing Helen. Before everyone returned, I mentioned to Ashley, as generally as possible, my plan for Helen, and she was completely on board. Apparently being away from Helen for a little helped Ashley realize that she was better off without Helen. "If you need any help, let me know." She had said but I wanted to keep as many people out of this as I wanted too.
Before long, it was time for the Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff match. I knew Harry was anxious leading up to this match since Snape would be refereeing the match. I really couldn't understand why he hated Harry so much, so much to almost kill him? That didn't make any scenes. He was perfectly fine towards me, not to say he was sunshine and rainbows, but I got it easier than Harry did.
Bundled up in our warmest clothes I piled into the stands with Rhea and Ashley among the other Gryffindors. "You see anxious." Ashley pointed out. I gave her a small shrug. "Snape really hates Harry. We're just interested if he can play fair out here." The moment the game kicked off Snape did not play fair. I stood in the stands yelling, a boy name Seamus standing just to the side, agreeing with all my arguments. After another bias call from Snape, in Hufflepuffs favor, I cursed.
I looked around the rest of the Quidditch players and caught George smacking a bludger right in the direction of Snape. I winced, even thought it didn't hit Snape, I knew George was going to get in trouble for that. Just then something caught the corner of my eye and I turned to see Harry speeding across the pitch. "He sees it!" I said to anyone that wanted to know. In record time Harry caught the snitch and the game was over.
"Oh, thank the stars." I said sighing and sitting back down. People were piling out of the stands now and heading back up to the school. "Come on, lets go get warmed up!" Rhea said smiling before pushing her glasses back and standing up. I nodded and followed them out of the stands. I ran into the twins as I exited the pitch. "George. What were you thinking?" I asked him as the fell into step with me. George shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck.
As we reached the great hall, I heard Ashley's voice coming from a step ahead of us. "Rose in bloom." That had been our secret signal when Helen was on the move. I braced myself for impact. "Ashley? Have you sunk so low as to hang out with..." She gestured towards the rest of us. "these people." I snarled and felt a wave of anger wash over the rest of us.
"You didn't want to go to the match, I did." Ashley said simply. Though on the shorter side of literally everyone in a five-foot radius of me, I stared down Helen until she huffed and walked away. As we all watched her walk away, I approached Rhea and Ashley. "Step two." Was all I said, and they nodded. I waved to the twins before we set off towards our room.
The following morning, I made Rhea wake me up the minute she was awake. I looked over to see Helen still asleep. I pulled myself out of bed slowly and quietly. Thank goodness I was an ace at being stealthy. I pulled out three sugar quills from my bag. I had given Fred and George back some of the things they lent me since my Dad had restocked my supplies.
As quietly as I could I pulled Helens school bag towards me and added the quills to her bag and then removed her good one. I put the bag back where I found it and tucked her good quill between a bunch of books on the side of her bed. With that finished Ashley and Rhea relaxed and moved to get ready for the day. A short minute later Helen woke up. I finished getting dressed and followed Rhea downstairs for breakfast.
Ashley had decided to stay behind to make Helen happy after the quidditch pitch. She also said she was going to let me know if Helen discovered them before class started. I sighed heavily, I wasn't sure if I totally trusted Ashley yet, but I didn't have another choice. I will just have to deal with the consequences as they came. We had transfiguration with the Gryffindors this morning, and the panic was starting to set in. Professor McGonagall was one of my favorite teachers here, but it didn't mean I didn't find her scary.
Rhea and I walked into the classroom with our heads held high, as high as someone as shy as Rhea could. I had told her countless of times that if this every blew up in my face it would never come back to her or Ashley. It was a promise I could make. Professor McGonagall gave us a small nod in greeting as we took out seats. I pulled everything out on my desk.
The class started off without a hitch. We practiced learning how to turn mice into snuffboxes, and I was so engrossed in my work I didn't even notice the small commotion going on somewhere behind me. Transfiguration always seemed to be my easiest subject. I loved everything about it, and constantly wondered what I could do with it outside of school. Just then as my little mouse snapped into a snuffbox a shrill voice pulled me from my wok.
"POTTER!"
Everyone in the room was looking at either Helen or myself. I slowly got up from my desk and walked over to Helen. "Yes Helen? Did you need help?" I asked her. Up until now I had totally forgotten about the quills. "YOU TOOK MY QUILL." I raised my eyebrows. "Um. What?" I said. By now Professor McGonagall had approached us. "What seems to be the problem that you need to interrupt my class?"
"It's nothing Professor. I think Helen just misplaced her quill."
"No, you took it and replaced it with this, nonsense!"
Helen held up a sugar quill. Professor McGonagall fixed me with a look. "I swear Professor I have no idea what she is talking about." Professor McGonagall looked down at my hands. "What is that?" I held it up to her. "My snuffbox." Her eyebrows shot up. "You did that already?" I nodded slowly and turned to look at my desk as if to make sure I did in fact change over the mouse. Professor McGonagall looked like she was fighting off a smile.
"Again." She said. I put the box on Helens table and changed it back. "Again." I did it at least three more times without even thinking about it. At one point I even did it without saying the incantation. If anyone noticed they didn't say anything. "Very well. Please return to your desk. Miss. Monroe. Please clean up this mess." She motioned to Helens things all over the floor from Helen looking for her good quill.
I sat back down next to Rhea and simply shrugged. With Helen behind us I couldn't risk saying anything to Rhea. After class I gathered my things, but McGonagall asked me to stay behind and talk to her for a second. Rhea kept a worrying glance my way and I urged her to go on. "I'll catch up!" I said sounding surer than I was. Once she left the classroom, I turned to Professor McGonagall.
"I wanted to know, Miss. Potter, if you are aware that you did nonverbal magic earlier."
My eyes grew wide and I shook my head. McGonagall gave me a small smile. "It is incredibly rare, and hard thing to learn. Have you ever done something like that before?" I shook my head this time. I couldn't trust my voice to answer her. "You are one of my top students this year. You seem to excel very well at Transfiguration."
"Thank you. I love the subject. Its fascinating, and challenging."
Professor McGonagall smiled and nodded at me. "I would like to continue working with your nonverbal magic as well. I think you have the ability to do wandless magic too, though that is increasingly harder." I nodded. I didn't know what to say to any of this. "I need to speak to the headmaster first, of course." Again, I just nodded. she gave me a rare, wide, smile before dismissing me.
Later that day I was sitting in the great hall looking over one of my textbooks when Rhea sat across from me. "Not that I don't always encourage studying, I have to know what happened with Professor McGonagall."
"We all do."
I looked up then to see Harry, Ron and Hermione standing behind Rhea. I winced. "It's nothing?" I said trying to convince everyone, including myself. Harry sat next to Rhea and I thought she was going to faint. "And did you do the quill thing?" Ron asked sounding more interested then annoyed. I nodded slowly. "Wicked." I just shrugged.
"Are you ever going to leave her alone?" Hermione asked. I shrugged. "If she leaves me or my friends alone, then sure." Hermione didn't look convinced. I turned back to Harry and Rhea. "Basically, Professor McGonagall wanted to talk to me about nonverbal magic." Everyone's eyes were as wide as teacups. "That's very advanced!" Hermione almost sounded offended. I just shrugged, again.
"Apparently, I did it earlier today, but I hadn't even realized. That was it, I don't know what exactly is going to happen now, she is bringing it up with Dumbledore."
"Oh no! Are you getting expelled?"
I shook my head. "No, I don't think so, but I guess we'll see."
After a while later Harry, Ron and Hermione went down to see Hagrid and I was left again with Rhea. We poured over our homework in the great hall until Ashley ran up to us. "You don't want to go up there. Helen is going insane." Rhea and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows. I opened my mouth to express my worst fear when Ashley handed me a bag.
"I grabbed it on my way out."
I smiled at her when I took the bag. Inside was every single one of my trinkets off dad. "Thank you!" I said to Ashley, hiding the bag at my feet. "I can't even imagine the state of the room." Rhea said sighing. Ashley shook her head. "No, you don't want too. I will be so surprised if the room isn't completely ruined when we get back." With a heavy sigh we started to gather out things. I noticed the twins talking to Lee Jordan.
"One second girls." I said walking over to the twins. They looked up as we reached them. "Hello boys." I said smiling. "I need a favor, pretty please!" a wicked smile grew on Fred face. "Well when you ask so nicely." I hold up the bag, that is technically one of these. "Can you hold these for me?" They raised an eyebrow and I explained. "I got Helen again and she is tearing apart our dorm looking for proof." George nodded and I handed him the bag. "You guys are the best!" I waved at them before going back to our dorm to see what awaits us.
When we opened the door almost every single member of Ravenclaw was in the common room. I could hear things crashing above us. Pushing through everyone I made my way to the bedroom and slammed the door open. I couldn't believe my eyes. My bed was broken in so many different ways, and my stuff was thrown all over the room, feathers floated around from ripped pillows, and I'm pretty sure something was on fire.
The most terrifying thing of all was the look on Helens face. She didn't look like a mad woman, but I knew she was close. "Helen!" Ashley gasped from beside me. "What have you done?" Ashley and Rhea where behind me now, looking over my shoulders at the mess. "I am going to prove it's you." Helen said with so much hate in her words. "How is that working out Helen? You have literally ruined everything of mine, and for what?"
Rhea had stepped into the room and started picking things up. Helen and I were still glaring at each other when Rhea gasped. "Oh, no." I looked over just to see her pulling a navy-blue fabric from the small heater in our room. It instantly felt like a punch to the gut when I realized it was my sweater from Mrs. Weasley. "YOU SET MY CLOTHES ON FIRE?" I screamed at her. "Oh, it was one sweater!" She said.
"It was a gift."
"From those twins you hang out with. God, you are disgusting Potter! You know everyone thinks your dating both of them?"
"That isn't true Helen, and you know that." Ashley chimed in. Helen didn't listen to her, instead continued to harass me about the Weasleys and something inside me snapped. I tackled her to the ground, and the girl fight broke out, with Rhea screaming "HELP!" in the background. When the Daniel, our prefect, arrived he had to help Rhea and Ashley pull us apart. We hadn't thrown any punches, but I had nail marks all over my face.
"That is enough!" He screamed at us. Grabbing both of us by the arms he walked us out of the common room and towards Professor Flitwick's office. He knocked once, and the professor ushered us inside. We sat down on a small couch across from him. "What is going on, Mr. Perch?" Flitwick asked Daniel. "We arrived back at the dormitories to find the girls dorm had been completely trashed and later I found Miss. Monroe and Miss. Potter in a physical altercation."
"Ladies, that is extremely unacceptable behavior. Please explain yourselves."
I was more then willing to let Helen explain herself. I had to hear this story; I knew it was going to be twisted to reflect poorly on me. "Well Professor." She started as I sat back with my arms crossed over my chest. "It all started when Holly threw a dungbomb under my bed, then she changed all my quills to sugar quills, and I've been trying to find proof that it was her, and when she came into the room she attacked me."
"Is that true Miss. Potter?"
"No. Holly is being paranoid. I have no idea what she is talking about with dungbombs and sugar quills. Yes, she was looking for proof, but what she didn't say was that she trashed everything that was mine, including breaking my bed and burning one of my sweaters! Also, as much as I hate to admit I did attack her, but not until after she spent five minutes insulting me, my family and my friends."
Professor Flitwick looked up at Dan again. "The room, what does it look like?" Dan nodded at me. "Miss. Potter is correct, everything of hers is destroyed." I wanted to high five him so badly. Thank god I at least had him on my side. "Miss. Monroe. I would have expected a little more class from someone of your stature. Miss. Potter, though a victim in this situation, even you should know better than resorting to fighting."
"Professor! Did you miss where I am the victim. She has been harassing me all year."
"You have no proof!"
"You hang out with the school's biggest pranksters! That's all the proof I need."
"Wow. Real stable proof, PI." My words dripped with sarcasm. Professor Flitwick put his hand up to quiet us and we turned back to him. "Detention, both of you. We will get the room cleaned up, and for tonight Miss. Potter you may need to sleep else were." I nodded slowly before we were dismissed. My sour mood lasted until the next morning when Rhea woke me up for breakfast.
I slept the entire night holding on to the burnt sweater, and my picture of my parents, the only two things that matter to me in that entire room and both were nearly destroyed. The sweater was beyond ruined, if I was being totally honest, but I couldn't let it go. It broke my heart, I looked at the Weasleys like a second family. They had given Harry and I so much support when we couldn't even reach our own parents.
I sat down at the table to hushed whispers about Helen and I. I ignored everyone and put my head on my hand. It wasn't until the table started to thin out that Rhea and I were approached by the Weasleys, Harry and Hermione. "What happened to you?" Ron asked ever so gentle. "Got in a fight." I mumbled without looking at anyone. "What?" Harry asked and I lifted my face to theirs. I watched his face change through the emotions of seeing his sisters face scared up.
Thankfully Rhea stepped in, as shy as she was, and told him what happened. She explained the situation with our bedroom, all my things, and the fight. She stopped as she mentioned the prefect hauling us off. "What did she burn?" Hermione asked. Rhea had left that part out. I pulled what remained of my sweat from my lap and handed it to Harry. I dug my nails into my hand, trying to fight back the tears. When Harry looked at me, I knew he understood. Ron was his best friend, and we were accepted into their family like we were one of them.
"I've got detention tonight." I added. "So, do we." Harry added with a small smile on his face. I looked up at him. "What did you do?" Harry shrugged. "I'll have to explain that later. We'll see you tonight?" I nodded and everyone broke off to start the day filled with classes, before a detention that was going to be held in the middle of the night. I already felt tired, I didn't know how I was going to make it until detention.