They gathered in the lunch room again the next day.

"Are you sure we should be doing this?" Rachel Cohen asked nervously. She studied the row of padlocks Alexandra had arranged on the table, then checked over her shoulder in the direction of Madam Erdglass's office.

"The Trace Office can't even see what we're doing here," Alexandra said.

"How do you know that?" Freddy asked.

Alexandra smiled. Freddy's mouth pursed but he didn't say anything else.

The collection of locks was nothing that would challenge a student at Charmbridge, but Alexandra suspected that Penny was right — the Department of Magical Education didn't want them to learn anything useful.

"I saw Unlocking Charms in our book," said Roger. "But Madam Erdglass said we won't be ready to practice them until next semester."

"That's stupid," Alexandra said. "Anyone with a wand can learn basic Unlocking Charms in a day. Heck, I was doing it with doggerel verse — er, spontaneous magic — before I even went to Charmbridge."

Freddy said, "I know Unlocking Charms. You keep forgetting I went to a Big Four school too." He tilted his wand forward to point it at an old padlock, and said, "Alohomora!" The padlock popped open.

Alexandra leveled her wand and swept her arm over the entire table, without saying anything. All the remaining locks popped open.

"Now you're just showing off," Freddy said, while the others goggled at the locks.

"Since you're so great, Freddy, I'll give you a challenge." Alexandra cast a Locking Charm on the padlock Freddy had just opened; it snapped shut. "Everyone else, choose a lock and open it."

Everyone went to work. Freddy, Pete, and Rachel Ing all knew the basic incantation and wand movements for an Unlocking Charm, as did Penny and Helen. Only Pete opened his on the first try. Rachel Ing opened hers on the second. Penny was the only other person to open her lock, after some struggling.

Freddy's lock refused to open. He glared at her. "You cheated."

Alexandra touched his lock with her wand, wordlessly. It popped open.

"You can only counter a Locking Charm if you're better than the witch or wizard who cast it," she said.

"Fine!" Freddy snapped. "You're like the greatest witch ever."

"I'm not the greatest witch ever," Alexandra said, meeting his resentful glare with an arrogance to match his. "I'm just better than you. Everyone at Charmbridge is better than you. Madam Erdglass is teaching us 'A-B-C's. Locking and Unlocking Charms and minor transfigurations. By-the-book spells and one-brew potions and basic charms. Only what whoever designed this curriculum thinks we should learn. But magic can do so much more. It isn't like those spell lists in your game books, Roger."

The sixth grader reddened and closed the book he'd been consulting, a wizardly grimoire for a game about slaying trolls and dragons and taking their treasure. "So how do we level up?" he asked.

"How do you 'level up' in history or math?" Alexandra scanned her audience. Freddy was sullenly attentive. Rachel Ing and Pete tried to maintain an air of superiority, but they couldn't hide their interest, even if it did mean taking instruction from a sophomore.

"You want to get better at magic, you have to practice," Alexandra told them. "You have to play with it. You can't just follow things from your book by rote, you have to mess around." Like we did at Charmbridge. She had never properly valued her education at Charmbridge Academy, not realizing how superior it was.

"We'll get in trouble," said Rachel Cohen.

"You can't join the resistance without breaking rules!" said Roger.

Rachel frowned at him.

"We're not going to break any rules," Alexandra said. "We're just going to practice outside of class. If you don't want to, go eat your lunch."

Rachel sniffed.

"Does this mean you're going to tutor us?" asked Helen.

Alexandra surveyed the faces of the day-school students in front of her. The younger ones — Silvia, Jamal, Roger, Chris, Rachel Cohen, and the Dennings — were possibly as talented and full of potential as she'd been when she first went to Charmbridge. The older teens, Freddy and Pete and Rachel Ing, all regarded her with mingled disdain and admiration. Helen radiated hopefulness. Behind her, Penny was a sullen shadow.

"Yeah," Alexandra said. "I'll be your tutor, Helen. And you other losers too, if you'll listen to me."

"Cool! We're joining the resistance!" said Chris.

Helen beamed and clapped her hands. The younger kids grinned, except Penny, who snorted, and Rachel Cohen, whose serious expression never changed. Rachel Ing and Pete exchanged glances, then Pete grinned and raised a pair of fingers in a "V" symbol.

What am I doing? Alexandra thought.

Madam Erdglass waited longer than usual before dismissing them for lunch the next day. Alexandra waited, ignoring the tense glances her classmates directed her way. Did the old woman somehow know what she was up to? But what could she do about it? Using magic outside of class was the point of learning magic.

"Next month," said the teacher, "we will have a field trip."

That got everyone's attention.

"We will be going to Chicago to visit the Central Territory Headquarters Building," Madam Erdglass said, "so as to provide you with a thorough understanding of Confederation government and the law."

Her tone was drier than usual. In two gnarled fingers, she held a rolled piece of parchment, the type delivered by an owl.

The younger kids were interested, as was Pete. Freddy folded his arms and adopted a bored expression; much too cool for Central Territory and Chicago. Rachel Ing applied lip gloss while studying her reflection in a hand mirror.

"After lunch we will continue our wand drills," Madam Erdglass said. Several students stifled groans. They slid out of their seats and made their way to the cafeteria, where they waited for Alexandra.

She had no idea how to tutor anyone. She started by practicing the spells she'd learned well: Unlocking and Levitation charms, Summoning spells, lights and glamours, and minor transfigurations. Most of them were at least a little familiar to the older students, but they hadn't had much practice. The younger kids were awed.

Alexandra couldn't always remember how old she'd been when she learned a particular spell. When the younger Rachel objected that Summoning Charms weren't in the sixth graders' book and she found them in Young Wands, Year Four, Alexandra shrugged.

"If you want to wait until you're a freshman, stick to Light Spells," she said.

Rachel's smooth forehead creased with disapproval. She wasn't uninterested, nor was she untalented, but learning things randomly and unsystematically, the way Alexandra practiced, seemed to perturb her orderly mind.

Madam Erdglass remained seemingly oblivious as all the students filed out of the class during each break and lunch recess. Even when Jamal conjured a tongue of green flame in class and moved it across his desk, Madam Erdglass told him to put it out, but didn't seem to notice that this wasn't a spell from any of his lessons.

Alexandra wrote to her friends and told them what she was doing. They wrote back that they were proud of her. Anna sent notes from her classes, but it was a letter from David that turned Alexandra moody and thoughtful.

"So guess which Old Colonial asshole is going to represent Charmbridge at the Central Territory Dueling Championship next month? Naturally, your old buddy Larry 'Six-Fingers' Albo."

Alexandra winced and read on.

"Whoever wins the Championship gets to represent Central Territory at the Junior Wizarding Decathlon. Any chance you can make it to Chicago and whup him, Alex?"

She checked the dates. The Pruett School's field trip to Chicago would in fact be taking place during the Championship. Then she looked up the rules for the Championship. Every school in Central Territory could send a representative. Every school!

Alexandra approached Madam Erdglass the next day in her office during lunch. The teacher, after hearing Alexandra's pitch, sat still for many long moments, which was what she had come to expect from the old woman.

"Dueling is not part of our curriculum," Madam Erdglass said finally.

"Why not?" Alexandra demanded. "Is it because day school students aren't expected to actually be part of the wizarding world?"

Madam Erdglass was unruffled. "Is that what you think magic is for, Miss Quick? Fighting duels? That's certainly not what we teach day school students."

"Of course not! Everyone knows day school students aren't taught magic like students at a real school!"

This outburst provoked no change in the old woman's flat expression and opaque, half-closed eyes.

Alexandra attempted a more placating tone. "We could do it before or after school."

"I can't have students getting hurt," Madam Erdglass said.

"No one will get hurt," Alexandra said.

For a moment the teacher seemed to either be thinking it over or nodding off. Then she said, "Is that what you told Dean Grimm?"

Alexandra stepped back as if from a slap. She stared at the ancient witch, then turned and stalked out of the room.

Every lunch period became extracurricular magic practice for the Pruett School students. Alexandra began arriving a little earlier in the morning, when Helen, Rachel Cohen, and Roger came through the Floo from Chicago. The four of them sat in one of the open classrooms. Alexandra checked Helen's homework, then made all three of the younger students practice simple charms and transfigurations. After two weeks, even Helen was beginning to manage a couple of spells that Madam Erdglass hadn't taught in class.

During lunch, Peter and Rachel Ing barely paid Alexandra more attention than they did Madam Erdglass. But Freddy, without dropping his grudging, superior attitude, followed everything Alexandra did closely.

"When are you going to teach us how to duel?" asked Chris one day. "I heard that real wizards can duel! With hexes and curses and death spells and everything!"

"Yeah, that would be awesome," said Jamal. "But she can't teach us that stuff."

They were practicing moving furniture around the room. Alexandra was the only one who could make the chairs and tables actually walk, though Penny, Freddy, and both Rachels had proven surprisingly strong when it came to pushing. Alexandra froze a wooden chair back into straight-legged immobility with a flick of her wand and eyed Jamal. "What makes you say that?"

Jamal rolled his eyes. "Like a girl knows how to duel."

Alexandra tapped the end of her wand on the table in front of her. It lunged at him.

Jamal backed away from the table. "Okay, I know you're good at Charms 'cause you went to a fancy school. But you ain't no Harry Potter!"

Alexandra laughed. "Where did you even hear of him?" Madam Erdglass's lessons in wizard history, taken from the Young Wands teaching series, barely mentioned the wizarding world outside the Confederation at any grade level.

"He's a great wizard and he defeated a Dark Lord when he was just a kid," said Jamal. "But that was another country where they have dangerous wizards and monsters and stuff. All our magic is stupid — turning straw into needles or making furniture dance."

Leah and Taylor nodded. "When we found out we were wizards, we thought we'd have adventures and go to magical places and meet all kinds of fantastic people. But this school is boring."

Alexandra's brow furrowed and her face darkened. The others blanched as the table she was resting her wand on began to smolder.

"Okay, fine," she said, "I'll teach you how to duel. But stop talking about death spells." She fixed her gaze on Chris. He swallowed and nodded.

The rest of that lunch period was spent practicing Stinging Jinxes. The next day, the younger students were throwing them at each other before and occasionally during class. Madam Erdglass looked up, twice, as Jamal or Chris or Taylor yelped or sat up straighter. Stinging sparks of light shot around the room when the teacher's eyes were closed or her head tilted toward her desk or her view was blocked by a book.

The hijinks continued during lunch. None of the sixth graders could cast a jinx strong enough to deliver more than a mild sting, but they practiced throwing them gleefully, until Jamal stung Pete. The senior advanced on him like an angry giant and threatened to shove the smaller boy up the Floo.

As Jamal scrambled away from him, Alexandra said, "That's enough!" and Summoned all the combatants' wands, yanking them out of their hands and pulling them through the air into her fist with an incantation and one sweep of her own wand.

"WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?" bellowed a nauseatingly familiar voice.

Everyone in the room jumped and spun toward the door, which was now blocked by the enormous robed girth of Franklin Percival Brown.

The thirteen students of the Pruett School exchanged glances, looked sheepishly away, or just stared at the impossibly broad, bearded man, whose face was already as red as Alexandra remembered from her appeals hearing.

Mr. Brown pointed a finger at Alexandra. "I might have known! A person would have to be a fool — a damned fool, I say, and I say it even before an audience of children — not to expect this very sort of behavior from the likes of you!"

"I'm sorry?" Alexandra said, with an icy, unapologetic tone.

"Return those wands to their rightful owners!" Mr. Brown shouted. "Immediately! Or I will have you charged with wand-theft!"

"Excuse me, sir," said Rachel Cohen, "but Alexandra didn't steal anyone's wands. She just took them away because they were using them to hex people."

Everyone looked away and stifled groans.

"Merlin's ghost! You ill-bred pagans were hexing each other?" Mr. Brown spoke the word "hexing" as if it had some secondary, obscene meaning.

"We were just practicing," said Chris. "We need to learn how to duel."

Even Silvia put a hand over her face at this. Freddy hung his head and shook it.

"Duel?" bellowed Mr. Brown. "Duel?! You are here to learn proper magic and how to conduct yourselves as marginally less dangerous members of society despite your breeding. Dueling is not a part of that curriculum — I saw to that myself and I am sure that Madam Erdglass has not done anything so irresponsible as to teach day school students from outside proper wizarding society to cast hexes!" His baleful gaze once again settled on Alexandra. "I would be shocked, shocked to the bottom of my soul, if Alexandra Quick is not behind this!" He made Alexandra's name sound even dirtier than "hexes."

"Hey, mister," said Pete. "What exactly do you mean by 'proper wizarding society'?"

"Or 'breeding'?" muttered Rachel Ing, not looking directly at Mr. Brown.

"He means Mudbloods," said Penny, just loud enough for the word to carry.

Helen and Leah gasped. Silvia and Taylor's mouths dropped open.

"What's a Mudblood?" asked Jamal, eyes narrowed.

"It's you," said Penny. "And me, and everyone else here except Alexandra and Xanthy-poo."

Helen blinked and looked at Penny with a puzzled frown. Alexandra watched with alarm as dark purple rage rolled up Mr. Brown's neck and across his face in response to the kids' defiance. His fists trembled.

Alexandra stepped in front of him. "You're right," she said. "I taught them Stinging Jinxes. I undermined your curriculum because it stinks. And I took their wands, too." She held up the fistful of wands.

She wondered if the man would actually strike her. He looked like he wanted to. He took in a great, snarling breath that made him swell even larger as he stepped within reach. This close, his massive bulk was formidable. Alexandra didn't back away. She was prepared for whatever he had in mind, unless he went completely mad.

He reached out and closed his large fingers around her wrist. It didn't actually hurt — his grasp was surprisingly limp — but his mass made it impossible for her to pull away.

"Give me those!" he said in the same loud, outraged voice.

Alexandra hesitated, then loosened her grip and allowed him to take the wands from her.

"Yours, too," he said.

"Excuse me?" Alexandra said.

Mr. Brown shook her wrist, jerking her arm and shoulder back and forth. "Do not attempt to play games with me, Miss Quick! I do not think your powers of comprehension are as lacking as your sense or decency! Give! Me! Your! Wand!"

Alexandra considered telling Mr. Brown where he could put the wands. But with a glower, she handed over the hickory wand in her hand.

"Oh, Franklin," said Madam Erdglass, appearing in the doorway. Alexandra wondered how it had taken her this long to hear Mr. Brown's bellowing. "What brings you here?"

"Madam Erdglass, you really must keep a closer eye on what these students of yours are getting themselves up to when your back is turned," Mr. Brown said. "I found them hexing each other like unschooled pagans! They openly admit to practicing magic outside their curriculum, right under your very nose!" He shook the wands clenched in his fist for emphasis.

"Really," said Madam Erdglass. "Dear me."

"I'm not a pagan," Rachel Cohen said suddenly, lips trembling. She seemed about to cry, but she spoke with determination. "I'm Jewish."

Mr. Brown's eyes bulged.

"Franklin, you haven't told me why you're here," Madam Erdglass said.

Mr. Brown cleared his throat. "I came to inspect the school and to ensure that standards are being met and regulations strictly adhered to. I'm sorry to say that I find myself grievously disappointed in your laxity, Madam Erdglass. Something must be done about these children waving their wands about without the least understanding of what they're doing."

"How about teaching them?" Alexandra said.

Mr. Brown's face began to mottle scarlet again. Madam Erdglass turned her opaque, sleepy eyes in Alexandra's direction for a moment, then said, "Yes, yes, I'll see to it, Franklin."

Mr. Brown shook his head. "That will not be satisfactory, Madam Erdglass. Clearly allowing these students to possess wands in an unsupervised environment is dangerous. I believe wand controls are necessary."

Madam Erdglass's face wrinkled impressively. "What sort of controls?"

"Wand-locks," Mr. Brown said. "And they shouldn't be allowed to take their wands out of this building. They can store them before they leave each day and retrieve them when they arrive for class —"

The students erupted in indignation. Pete clenched his fists and Rachel Ing went white with anger. Mr. Brown's face turned an even deeper red, but Madam Erdglass spoke first.

"Franklin," she said mildly, "we can't take all their wands without a good reason. Collective wand seizures, especially of Muggle-borns, looks very bad in the papers."

"Then I will charge them!" he said. "Every student who cast a hex is guilty of magical assault!"

"For hexing?" Alexandra exclaimed. "You'd have to charge every single student at Charmbridge Academy!"

"Listen to this sorceress!" bellowed Mr. Brown. "Do you see what a contemptuous creature she is? She flaunts every law like the shameless, uncivilized Bellatrix she is! She's already corrupting other juveniles with her wickedness! If this isn't the illegitimate spawn of a Dark wizard showing her true nature, may I be thrice-cursed by morning!"

For once, Alexandra was too outraged to say anything, but her own face was beginning to turn as red as Mr. Brown's.

"Whoa," said Pete. "Excuse me, mister, but even if we were breaking the rules, I don't think you get to talk to us like that."

Mr. Brown didn't advance on Pete as he had on Alexandra, but his face rippled with fury and he brandished the wands clutched in his hand. "Young man, the Confederation, the Department of Magical Education, and Franklin Percival Brown, III, will not be mocked! I am going to have each and every one of you —"

"Franklin," said Madam Erdglass, "confiscating Miss Quick's wand seems adequate. Charging her with magical assault would require an awful lot of paperwork."

Mr. Brown looked at the elderly witch, face twitching, and seemed to be debating with himself. He was obviously prepared to keep bellowing threats, but Madam Erdglass's sleepy imperturbability seemed to have a calming effect on him.

He turned on Alexandra with a snarl. "You will turn over your wand every day at the end of class to Madam Erdglass."

"Whatever," Alexandra said.

"YOU SPEAK RESPECTFULLY TO ME!" Mr. Brown bellowed.

"Whatever, sir," Alexandra said. With one hand behind her back, she made a finger gesture visible to those standing behind her. Silvia gasped, and Leah and Taylor giggled.

Mr. Brown's eyes flickered their way, then turned back on Alexandra suspiciously. She stared him down wordlessly, until he turned and said, "Madam Erdglass, I need to discuss certain matters with you, and inspect the students' records."

Madam Erdglass made a tiny movement like a shrug, and shuffled back toward her office without speaking. Mr. Brown followed, filling the hallway behind her.

For the rest of the day, Mr. Brown sat in the office Madam Erdglass usually occupied while the instructor presided over the students. Occasionally he would stomp over to the door of the classroom and glare at them, as if expecting to find them committing lewd and immoral acts. Then he scribbled in a small notebook.

At the end of the day, as the students from Chicago lined up to step back into the furnace and the others filed outside to wait for the bus, Alexandra strolled casually to the door with the rest of them, but was brought to a halt by Mr. Brown's angry roar: "MISS QUICK!"

She stopped and sighed. She shrugged at her fellow students, then turned and walked back up the corridor to where Mr. Brown waited, with Madam Erdglass at his elbow.

He held out a hand. "Your wand!"

"I thought I'm supposed to give it to Madam Erdglass," she said. "Sir."

His eyes bulged. Madam Erdglass opened her own hand. "Let's not trifle here, Miss Quick."

Alexandra placed the basswood wand in Madam Erdglass's hand.

Mr. Brown said, "I will personally observe your securing of this witch's wand, if you don't mind, Madam Erdglass. I do not mean to suggest that I have anything but full confidence in you —"

"My Anti-Theft Charms are quite adequate," Madam Erdglass said.

"Certainly, madam," said Mr. Brown. "However —"

"And Goody Pruett will keep her eyes on the room where it's stored," Madam Erdglass said. "Would you like to question her reliability?" Without waiting for an answer, she shuffled toward the stairs, with Alexandra's wand dangling loosely in her hand. "Come along, Franklin. I'll show you where we put things off-limits to students."

Mr. Brown, harrumphing and hawing, followed Madam Erdglass up the stairs. Neither looked back at Alexandra.

Alexandra stood in the empty hallway outside Madam Erdglass's office, feeling smug about the hickory and yew wands still in her pocket but also annoyed and aggrieved on principle. Madam Erdglass and Mr. Brown had dismissed her without so much as a word — they'd taken her wand, treated her like a criminal, and assumed her powerless and subject to whatever authoritarian whims they felt like inflicting.

And they'd left the door to the office open. On the desk inside sat the little notebook Mr. Brown had been carrying around.

It was probably some boring records book, or maybe just where the big bully wrote nasty notes about kids he hated, Alexandra thought. But the temptation to take a look, just because she could and because she knew it would piss him off, and because the two adults had been stupid enough to leave her unsupervised after telling her she was too untrustworthy and dangerous to leave unsupervised, was overwhelming.

She crossed the threshold before it even occurred to her that it might be a trap. Stupid! She looked around, opening her eyes with Witch's Sight, but saw no alarms, no wards, nothing suggesting that Madam Erdglass was so foresightful, or paranoid.

Alexandra drew her hickory wand and cast a spell for finding wards, locks, and Bars. No tell-tale green fire glowed, though she knew a skilled witch's wards wouldn't be revealed so easily. She wasn't sure whether Madam Erdglass was in that category.

The notebook was old and stained. She considered setting it on fire, or perhaps using a slime spell, or covering it with biting insects. With more time she could even make the insects burst out of it when opened — that was a trick she'd been wanting to try, even if she'd only worked it out in theory. But she told herself not to be more stupid. She should get out of here as quickly as she could, without leaving traces.

She opened the cover and flipped through the pages. Each one contained a list of names, dates, and grade levels. Some names were written in black, some in red, and a handful in blue. The earliest names were from several years ago. The last non-blank page was nearly halfway through the book. On it, Alexandra read:

Lila Hill — 3/24/2000. Grade 6.
Forrest Fleming — 5/23/2000. Grade 6.
Roger Darby — 7/12/2000. Grade 6.

All three names were written in black.

She was not sure what to make of this. What was Mr. Brown's interest in Roger, the nerdy Muggle-born boy from Chicago who had shown up the first day of class wearing a tie? Who were Lila Hill and Forrest Fleming — students at another day school, perhaps? Mr. Brown couldn't be harassing only the Pruett School's students.

Stuck between the pages was a small, stiff, discolored business card. It resembled the card Diana Grimm had once given her. Alexandra took it out and examined it. Franklin Percival Brown, III's name was stenciled below the Seal of the Confederation, which caught her eye, being much brighter than the card on which it was printed.

In much smaller letters below Brown's name was printed: "Accounting Office."

Mr. Brown's vibrating tenor, drowning out whatever Madam Erdglass was saying, grew louder as the two of them descended back down the stairs. Alexandra hesitated, then tucked the card in her pocket and hurried out of the office. By the time she got outside, the bus had come and all the other students were gone.