This ended up taking me far longer than I anticipated, but I feel like I put pretty good work into it. Hope you guys like it! Reviews really make my day. :)

I always have so much I want to say and then when I'm finally ready to post I've forgotten it all. Oh well!

"Did you hear about the dueling club?" I overhear the conversation countless times. It's all over the school by midmorning, after a poster had been put up for it overnight. Girls are squealing left and right, talking about how excited they are to have yet another opportunity to see Professor Lockhart during the week. I too, have been excited for the dueling club, but I just want to see all the craziness it will cause. Unfortunately for me, my little dream is dashed by reality.

"I'm sorry, Charlotte, but there's no way yeh can go to a club. Dumbledore's orders are yeh got to have detention with me every nigh', 'cept Sunday, o'course," Hagrid apologizes.

"I didn't think that one through," I sigh. "I was so excited when I heard about it too."

I'm sitting in Hagrid's hut for my regular detention. Apparently Hagrid has previously decided that he likes me (or he just wanted to please Dumbledore) because he agreed to nightly detention for 2 months. Maybe a child wouldn't realize what was going on, but I saw through Dumbledore's plan in an instant. He's basically sent me to rehab. Who better to make me feel guilty about my transgressions and make me want to be a better person than the most compassionate person around?

"I know yeh wanted to go, but that'll just help yeh remember to make good choices next time, eh?" Hagrid still looks a little guilty though, so he puts yet another rock cake on my plate. I fight back a sigh as I stare at the inedible dessert. I have no interest in losing my teeth, but I don't want to turn down the friendly half-giant's kindness.

"Thanks, Hagrid. You're right." I pick up the rock cake as he picks up his own and dunk it in my warm tea, hoping that Hagrid doesn't notice that I'm not actually eating it. "So what are we up to today?" I've only had detention with Hagrid for a few days now, but our outings have included everything from pooper scooper to unicorn whisperer (both enterprises managed to go awry).

"I'm not feelin' too well. All this cold weather's been gettin' to me. I hate askin' it of yeh, but would ya be able to take care of some of the critters for me? I don't think I can manage today." It has been freezing here, it being late December and all.

"Of course! I would be happy to."

"Thanks, Charlotte. You're a real help. I know yeh don't want to be 'ere, but it's been great havin' yeh aroun'." I try to fight the blush crawling across my cheeks, but I give up after a moment; it's not like I need to hide my emotions from Hagrid.

"Thanks. That means a lot. And I know I have to be here, but that doesn't mean I mind coming. Though coming nearly every day is a little much for my schedule," I joke. Hagrid laughs merrily, though it's cut short by a cough. I can't help but want to take care of the poor guy- he's just so nice!

"I'll go get started. You should rest. I'll come by to check up on you too. Are you sure you shouldn't go see Madame Pomfrey?"

"No, I'm fine." He coughs again, and I raise a brow at him. "Alrigh' maybe I'll go tomorrow. When I'm feelin' better we need to start preppin' for that blizzard comin' in a few days."

"That's fine. Is that why it hasn't snowed at all lately?" I ask as I shrug on my my coat and boots.

"That's what they're sayin'. Anyway, thanks again!" I see myself out, headed to the side of Hagrid's hut first. Fortunately for me, most of his magical creatures right now aren't terribly dangerous nor are there that many, seeing as he isn't a professor yet. That's next year's problem.

In the meantime, I'm taking care of the odd creature here and there. I picked up on their routines quickly, since Hagrid has had me go around with him everyday and help him out. I haven't been having these detentions for long now, but I'm still confident that I can do this much at least.

Despite my initial misgivings, I find myself looking forward to these detentions. Caring for the creatures has been calming, and going along with Hagrid on his misadventures has been far more fun than I had ever imagined. Caring for magical creatures isn't something I had really thought about before as a hobby, but I'm definitely coming around to it, despite all the cold.

While doing these daily chores of feeding, cleaning, and trying not to get hurt, I find my stress fading, even as my mind races three steps ahead. It feels less like a stress mechanism and more like what my brain is actually meant to do- think.

Hagrid is wonderful and kind, but he really isn't the best teacher. Even as he explained some of the things he wanted me to do, I found myself thinking of better ways to explain it to make more sense, or, better yet, coming up with more efficient ways to get the same tasks done. Out of respect for the groundskeeper, I did most things the way he asked, except for the ones that were downright dangerous, but now that I have the evening to myself, I am able to try out some of my ideas without hurting his feelings.

I suppose I may have been a little ambiguous in my saying that I've been caring for magical creatures. I would say "taking care of" is a better term, but more in that way that gangsters "take care of" people that get in their way. Not that I've been hurting anything...much. More like, I've been helping the creatures not hurt the students.

A good example of this is the red cap problem. We've had red caps closer to the school than usual recently because one of the thestrals died in the pack. Apparently there was blood shed because now the stupid red caps are everywhere. Every time Hagrid tries to shoo them away, it feels like five more show up even closer to the school than before. I'm still not sure why Professor Kettleburn hasn't gotten involved in this, but apparently it's the groundskeeper's job first?

For the most part, Hagrid's reaction to the red caps has been yelling at them and throwing them back into the forest as they try to bludgeon his knees. The first time I was brought along for this outing, I used the first hex I could think of, which for some stupid reason was the tickling charm. It fortunately worked, but was kind of a stupid move. Hagrid seemed to like it though, since it didn't particularly hurt the creature and he could throw it more easily.

Now that I've had more time to think about and read up on the issue, I found out that red caps attack people who wander through their territory, so clearly they think the area closer to the school is now within their territory. They probably moved closer when they realized there were more potential victims this way.

So the new plan, and the one that Hagrid would never go for if he knew what I was doing, is to go further in the forest and kill something out there. Well, that was the plan at first, but that's a little brutal. So instead, I'm going to see if I can trick them into thinking that there was bloodshed by spreading some salamander blood around. Hopefully that will work and get rid of these pesky red caps. I've been waiting for the opportunity to put this plan in motion, and now is the perfect time to do it.

I make sure my over the shoulder bag is comfortable by my side as I head into the forest, after one last check to make sure the flask of salamander blood is safe inside. It shouldn't freeze with my body heat, and I'm not going to be outside that long. Fortunately, Theo let me swipe the flask of blood from one of our tutoring sessions. As part of my promise to myself about being more open, I've kept him in the loop about my detentions and about my plan for today. He made sure to tell me repeatedly that it isn't a foolproof idea, but he did admit that it wasn't completely stupid, so that was nice.

Now I'm off to solve this problem! As I walk through the Forbidden Forest I keep my wand up and my mind sharp. Every twig snapping makes me think of a hundred dangerous creatures that could be coming for me, but fortunately my fears don't set me so on edge that I constantly fire spells. I even manage to stop myself from setting a bird on fire, despite the spell being on the tip of my tongue when I first notice it out of the corner of my eye.

My walk doesn't take more than twenty minutes, but it's enough time for my nerves to be shot. It's early evening, I should be fine. The sun won't set for a little while. I'm just spreading the blood and leaving. And yet, despite my own reassurances, I'm a mess of worry. I thought this little adventure on my own would be good for me, but so far it's just showing me that I've still got a long way to go.

Working with Hagrid the past few days showed me how much I can improve- how being focused on useful, physical tasks has really helped level me. But I was with Hagrid, not on my own. Maybe all I'll ever be good for is following someone else's directions. What a crappy personality trait for someone with as much dangerous information in her head as me. Maybe it would be better if I just told Dumbledore everything and let him continue to be the masterminded manipulator he's always been.

I don't realize how badly I've spiraled into a bad headspace until I trip on an overly large root and fall flat on my face with an ominous sounding crunch. I was so lost in thought that when I finally come back to my surroundings I realize I have no idea where I am. Was I just walking straight this whole time? Looking back, nothing looks familiar.

"Shit," I whisper to myself. Of course I would do something this stupid. I'm too busy berating myself about how much of a loser I am to do the thing I set out to do to prove that I'm not a loser; self sabotage at its finest. Not much to do now but keep with the plan, right?

I move to pick myself up off the ground, but am forced to stop as quickly as I start. My right leg has shooting pain going through it. What the hell did I do? I'm still lying flat on the ground, so I roll myself on my left side to asses the damage. The motion makes the pain infinitely worse, and I can't stop the hiss that escapes my lips. How did I not notice this as soon as I fell?

I force my eyes open, having slammed them shut to ride out the initial wave of searing pain, to find a huge shard of glass in my leg. I managed to avoid cutting my jacket, but it went right through my pant leg. I'm absolutely covered in blood from chest to foot, but the only thing that hurts is my leg. What is going on? I stare at the glass in confusion before my poor, shocked brain finally kicks back on and puts the pieces together for me.

This blood isn't all mine. It's from the vial. I grope for my bag blindly at my hip and jerk my hand back roughly.

"Shit," I whine, licking the blood that's now pooling from my hand. This is what I get for being too stubborn for gloves, but I didn't want to get any blood on them! Well, this new cut answered my question anyway. I must've fallen on my bag and broken the vial of blood when I tripped. I can't believe what a moron I am. How could I be so careless?

I take a deep breath, willing myself to focus despite my throbbing leg. First, I need to get the glass out. I certainly can't walk back with that in my leg. I start with the idea of just yanking it out with my hands, but maybe it would be better to use magic? Where is my wand anyway? Looking around my immediate vicinity, I see it just out of arm's reach. Well, I guess I'm doing this by hand than. It's not worth dragging my wounded self across the forest floor just yet.

But before I start ripping stuff out of my leg, I need something to bandage it with. I can't even really tell how big the cut is because there is so much blood all over me. I should probably clean myself up a bit first. Ah, now the wand seems useful. I know plenty of great cleaning spells. Ugh, I was hoping to not need a reason to move myself.

"This is going to hurt," I mumble, more angry with myself than the situation. Well, this is what I get for being stupid. "Okay, gently now." With as much grace as I can muster, I lean on my left leg and drag myself by the elbows across the ground. The small sticks and stones beneath me are definitely unpleasant to grind against my good leg, but fortunately I don't come across any more shards of glass.

"Why didn't I just use wandless magic to get my wand? And why didn't I get an unbreakable vial?" I moan, the reality of my stupidity hitting me so hard I throw my head down on the ground in defeat. We have those! At the castle! Right now! Why wouldn't I use one of those instead of risking something stupid like this? Theo is going to say the exact same thing when I get back. If I get back.

Suddenly the reality of my situation hits me: I can't be out here at night. Hagrid isn't well enough to come looking for me if I get lost. Hell, he might already be asleep. No one will know I'm out here except Theo, and he wouldn't know I was missing until sometime tomorrow. I'll definitely freeze to death if I'm out here overnight. I should have told Hagrid where I was going. I shouldn't have done this alone. I shouldn't have done this at all.

I can tell how much I'm panicking by how erratic my thoughts are. I'm starting to shake too, and the cold certainly isn't helping that. I'm all over the place. I need to think slower. One thing at a time. Focus.

"Breathe." I tell myself, forcing slow, deep breaths through me. This is what my wound up brain is meant to do- get me through one of those situations I'm always freaking out about. This is one of those situations, so I just need to let my brain do its thing and think about how to get me out of here. The only issue with this, of course, is that my brain only wants to think about the worst case scenarios if I don't get out of here.

"Okay, I don't even know if I can't walk yet. I might be blowing this way out of proportion. Maybe the cut isn't that bad." I talk myself through the best case scenario, albeit at a pace far faster than normal.

I've been holding my wand for a few minutes now, trying not to succumb to analysis paralysis. First, I need to clean the wound. Right, right. I turn myself back over, laying flat now, and slowly sit myself up. The relatively small motion of my leg is utter agony, and I'm now even more worried about how deep this glass is.

Fortunately, the amount of pain I'm in has no way dulled my memory, as I quickly and easily have a cleaning spell come to mind that erases all the, now dried, blood covering me. I instantly feel better, but only for a moment. I've cleaned the dried blood off, but there's new blood oozing from the deep gash in my thigh. It seems like half the length of the beaker is in my leg. Of course, I'll have no way of verifying this until I pull it out, but just the sight of it is making me feel queasy. Putting that off for a moment, I remember that my bag filled with broken glass is still on my hip.

"Wingardium Leviosa." I make sure to swish and flick, thanking Hermione for making this the easiest spell for me to remember. I use the spell to take my bag delicately off my shoulder; probably a little overkill on the magic use, but at least I can control it to make sure I don't cut myself any more.

Once my bag is off my shoulder, I see the huge hole that the broken vial created. I'm more careful this time when I pick it up, but I'm not gentle at all in upending it and shaking out the remnants of glass inside it. Satisfied that my ruined bag is no longer a danger to me, I put it back on. I'll repair it later at school.

Now that that's out of the way, it's time to fix my leg. "This is going to be awful," I say, and I'm unhappy to hear the hint of future tears in my voice. Now is not the time to throw a pity party or be hysterical. No one else is coming to do this for me. I shouldn't have put off learning medi wizardry. That's the first thing I'll be doing when I get back- learning the basics. This lapse in learning could be the end of me.

I roll my eyes and let loose an aggravated sigh. This is why I came to school in the first place! Besides having fun, of course, which I'm generally doing a bad job of, the reason I needed to be here was to learn how to protect myself so that I could have a good time. Getting eaten by a horde of spiders in the forbidden forest because I didn't put medi wizardy high enough on my list of things to learn would be infuriating. I shiver at the thought. I hope the red caps would get me first.

"Oh shit!" The red caps! I had completely forgotten about them until now! Well, I've probably solved that problem at least, but I may be solving it with my own corpse. There's spilled blood here, just as I intended, and they're going to come looking for the wounded creature soon, unless that wounded creature gets her ass in gear!

"Alright, here I go. No more excuses." I remind myself that this will be far less terrible than being bludgeoned to death as I carefully, but not too slowly, pull the shard of glass from my leg. I don't know if I would be less delicate with my wand, so I don't dare to try. The gush of blood is enough to make me want to faint, but I push through the pain and manage to get the piece out cleanly. I hope.

"Oww." The piece of glass is about as large as I feared, though, braving a look into the wound, I don't see anything that looks like bone, so that's good. I put the bloody glass down beside me and pick my wand back up, my head spinning.

"Okay, I'm a witch. I need to think like one. What can I do now to get myself out of this situation?" I ask myself. I could send up red sparks like Harry did that one time, except I don't know how. Besides, would anyone really be looking this way? No time to care. Next plan. Summon my broom? That's not a bad idea.

"Accio, Cleansweep Five!" I command, pointing my wand at where I think Hogwarts is located. Alright, what's my next plan while I wait and hope that worked? Man, I wish I could levitate. That would solve a lot of problems right now.

While I wait on the broomstick and try to wrack my brain, I take off my coat and slice it with a simple spell. I'm not very attached to this one anyway, and now I can wrap it around my leg to help stem my wound. This may be a smart idea, but it's exceedingly painful!

"Maybe I should just bleed to death and end this pointless suffering," I huff. It only takes a moment of self pitying before I am rolling my eyes at my own melodrama. I'm sure Theo would be very angry with me if I died here, not to mention every other person who knows and loves me.

I notice something moving through the dead trees, stopping my thoughts short. Is that my chariot arriving? I move to try and get my legs under me and immediately regret changing positions, not least because the coat isn't doing as much as I hoped and a new wave of blood rushes from the wound.

Fortunately, I'm not too distracted by my pain to notice another movement in the trees from a different direction. I highly doubt I summoned more than one broom… It's probably the red caps…Or the spiders...

Taking a deep breath, I try again to get myself on my feet, but between the pain in my leg and my wooziness, I'm on the ground again before I'm even half standing. Okay, defending myself on my feet is out of the question, as is running away. I guess I did lose a fair amount of blood.

Now that I'm back on the ground I'm noticing even more movement: branches cracking under feet and strange sounding voices. I'm definitely about to be ambushed. I idly notice that the sun has already started setting, if the dusk and dropping temperature are any indication. I'm thankful for the lack of snow or this would all be so much worse.

All at once it feels like there are red caps coming at me from every direction, screaming and shouting as they run at me. I can't tell how many there are; in the failing light and with fear clouding my mind there could have been a thousand or five and I couldn't tell the difference. Stupidly, all I can think of is how dark it is now that the sun has nearly set and before I know what I'm doing I shout, "Lumos".

This, of course, does very little, except blind everyone involved. I manage to use the moment of surprise to my advantage by coming up with a more practical spell. I'm still sitting, my legs stretched out in front of me, horribly vulnerable and unable to move. I have to be smart about this.

"Incendio!" I shout. Or, you know, I can use the most impractical and stupid spell imaginable for this situation. I mean, the spell gets the job done, of burning the red cap, but it also burns the surrounding area that I'm sitting in, since the burning red cap doesn't sit still as it's on fire, but runs and spreads the flames all around it, quickly catching on the dead trees and leaves that are abundant in midwinter. Now I really wish there was snow.

"Fucking genius," I murmur. Thank goodness we learned the extinguishing charm, except, that would require me to have the time to use it! Instead, I'm rolling to my left to avoid being bludgeoned by even more red caps, who for some reason are not deterred by one of their own being set aflame!

"Do you seriously not care about being set on fire?" I shout at them as I use my free hand to punch one in the face out of sheer desperation, it falls back as I point my wand at another. "Reducto!" Again, the first spell I think of, and definitely not the best, as I am covered in blood for the second time today. "For fuck's sake!" I need better spells! Why can't I think straight? I was fine with the stupid cleaning spell!

What I really need to do is focus on using the extinguishing spell to stop this fire from getting out of hand, but that's nearly impossible when I need to also avoid getting killed by these stupid red caps! To make the situation even worse, some of the little mongrels are still trying to attack me while on fire. Instead of dealing with it, they're still swinging at me even as their flesh peels away.

"Your priorities suck!" I try another spell, but I miss as a burning red cap jumps onto my hurt leg. Screaming, I can't think coherently enough to do anything but try to shake the damned thing off. I thrash around wildly as the fire very quickly spreads across my clothing.

Extinguish! I have to use the extinguishing spell! The thought finally breaks through my panic, and though I've dropped my wand in the chaos, I'm not letting that be the reason I die. But even as I think this, I realize that the fire is gone. In fact, all the fire is gone. Did I just use very powerful wandless magic or was that accidental magic at its finest? Same thing, I guess.

I don't have time to consider what just happened, as I am still dealing with the red caps trying to maul me. "Accio wand!" I call. It flies helpfully into my hand, fortunately unscathed by the fire. Now if only I could think of a good spell to use.

For a fleeting, horrible moment, a spell does come to mind, but even in this situation, I can't bring myself to use it. It's stupid, I know. I literally just blew one of these little shits up, but I can't bring myself to say the words of the killing curse. Wracking my brain, I realize the spells I had been drilling this year were all meant to be used on a dueling wizard, not a horde of charging creatures.

"Wingradium Leviosa!" I try, but my spell misses its target and I get a nasty hit to my arm in recompense. An angry punch at my attacker works much better. "Ugh, screw it." I'm covered in blood anyway, no point in trying to be creative with spells.

"Reducto! Reducto! Reducto!" Why be classy when you can make your enemies implode? Wiping the blood off my face as I continue to cast and throw the occasional punch, I vow to be more graceful in the face of danger in the future. This is just embarrassing at this point, nevermind the amount of injuries I've sustained. Finally, definitely worse for wear, it's all over.

When the attacking red caps are no more (though I'm sure more will come with the amount of blood I've spilled here tonight) I notice that my escape has indeed arrived. In fact, it's been poking me in the back for quite a while now. I think I may have thrown some punches at it earlier, thinking I was being hit by an enemy. Now that I'm a little calmer, I see that my broom has been impatiently waiting for me to use it.

"Couldn't have come before I got set on fire?" I chide it. I grab the handle and pull it closer to the ground. I'm not actually sure if this will work, but I'm certainly willing to try. Since the last time I stood up was a disaster, I'm going to have the broom just off the ground and swing myself onto it from my sitting position.

Everything hurts so badly I don't know how I'm conscious. I can't even tell if I'm bleeding anymore because my skin is burnt and blistering and I'm covered in the blood of my enemies. This stupid little adventure has turned into such a nightmare, and I can't wait to get out of here. I really hope this idea works. I'm in far too much pain to come up with another one.

As gingerly as possible, I lay myself across the broom. It doesn't seem to be pushing on any part of me that's very burned, so I should be fine. Fortunately my left leg, although burned, still has some strength left in it to push off the ground and give the broom the start it needs to lift me. I'm not risking running into anything else, so I fly above the treetops as quickly as I can without having to change my position on the broom, no sharp dives for me right now.

It doesn't take me more than five minutes to get back to the castle, but the freezing night air on my burned skin is so excruciating that I'm sobbing by the time I reach the front doors. I have to get inside. I have to get help. Instead of getting off the broom and losing my mobility, I hover at the height of the door handle and use the strength of the broom to push it open. If I was on my feet I could never open it myself.

Now safely inside the, much warmer, front hall, I assume I'm just going to fly myself to the Hospital Wing, while I'm still conscious, but this plan quickly goes awry. I had completely forgotten about dinner, and from where I am I can see the Great Hall doors swung open, with everyone inside eating. Fortunately I'm at an angle where most everyone can't see me, and I can only see a few of them.

Much to my chagrin, not everyone is in the Great Hall, however. Standing just outside, looking as stupid as ever, is Lockhart. Fortunately (and also not?), Snape is arguing with him. Lockhart is the one facing me.

"Good god, what happened to you?" he asks me, completely abandoning his discussion. I must look as bad as I feel. Snape turns around, looking furious for just a moment before his expression changes into what almost looks like, concern? That's a rare face for him to make. He immediately makes his way over to me as I hover just above his head.

"Charlotte, what's going on? Get down from there." Snape demands. I open my mouth to argue, refusing to move, but Lockhart cuts me off.

"Oh, it seems obvious to me what happened here, you see-" He, in turn, is interrupted by Snape.

"What are you doing still standing here? Go fetch Flitwick. He should be notified. I'll be taking Miss Campbell to the Hospital Wing." It's at this moment that I hit my limit, and despite what I think is a strong grip on my broom, I sway so hard that I topple off. I'm not sure how I end up in Snape's arms, but I'm surprised by how stable and strong they feel. I can't stop the shriek of agony that escapes me as his catch inevitably touches my burns. I'm surprised I'm still conscious but I know I am because I can still hear Lockhart's stupid voice.

"I can treat her right here. I've dealt with plenty of burns in my time." There are more voices now too, probably students who had heard my cry.

"Don't-" I whisper. I open my eyes one more time, not even realizing that I had closed them. I look Snape in the eye for the first time, unable to remember right now why I never have. He holds my gaze, and pulling his robe, I force him closer to hear me. "Don't let that idiot touch me. I trust you." Now confident that Lockhart won't kill me while I'm down, I finally let go. The last thing I recall is something I'm sure I imagined- a tiny smirk on Snape's face.