Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor am I affiliated with it in any way.

Note: I got a good question from a reviewer for last chapter about the reason Whitney saw James in the Mirror before she saw Lily. For anyone who's interested in my response, I've posted it below this chapter.

Additionally, I should mention that, at the end of this chapter is the scene between Snape and Quirrell in the woods. Some of the dialogue is straight from the book, though I tried to keep the flavor text unique.

Chapter Sixteen – Not Weak

Whitney kept her encounter with Dumbledore and her experience with the Mirror of Erised to herself for the next several days. She wasn't sure what to make of it. She had been caught out of bounds after hours by the Headmaster himself, but he had merely looked amused through his half-moon spectacles and told her to scurry on to bed. While she had no intention of ignoring the Headmaster's warning against searching for the Mirror again, she longed to see her father's face again. She spent hours locked in the girls' dormitory with the photo Neville had given her for Christmas.

When the holidays ended, however, and the girls started trickling back to the school, Whitney wasn't able to hide so easily, and reluctantly rejoined the populous. Ambushed by Lavender into discussing which dress she should wear to her first feast back at school, Whitney quickly picked the one with the most frills—which pleased Lavender—and slipped into the common room. She frowned when she heard intermittent laughter broken by Hermione's indignant voice calling for order, and quickly descended the stairs to see what the matter was.

Whitney gasped and turned red and angry in the face when she saw Neville hopping across the common room, his legs bound together with magic. She stood back as Hermione undid the curse, and listened to the two of them talk.

"Neville!" Hermione exclaimed. "What happened?"

"Nothing," he said rather stiffly, turning pink in the face.

"Not nothing, Neville," she said sternly, shaking her head. "Someone did this to you."

Neville groaned. "It doesn't matter," he said, getting to his feet

Whitney stepped forward now and cleared her throat to get Neville's attention. She was a little pale, but her cheeks were still pink. "Was it Malfoy?" she asked in a quiet tone. Scattered around the common room, their Housemates were pretending not to listen.

Neville merely straightened his robes, eyes on the floor. It was all the answer Whitney needed, though she wasn't quite sure what to do with it. Draco, who had been so nice to her when they'd first met, was nothing more than Dudley with a wand.

Whitney looked down at her own wand in her hand. Dudley had always been stronger than her; he'd always made her feel weak and outmatched. But Draco? Draco wasn't any stronger than she was. Not here, with magic. She gripped her wand hard, and little, red sparks left the tip.

Whitney glanced up at Hermione, who was staring at her with pleading eyes. Hermione shook her head slightly, but Whitney turned on her heel, robes flying around her, and headed for the portrait hole.

Once she was outside in the corridor, Whitney realized that, not only did she not know where to find Malfoy, but that she didn't know what she was going to do when she did find him. She stood in the hall outside the Gryffindor common room for a moment, deciding between searching the dungeons and simply checking the Great Hall.

She had decided on the Great Hall and was turning to walk away when a hand laid itself on her shoulder. Whitney froze and bit back an angry comment before turning to see Neville standing behind her. He dropped his hand to his side and looked at her for a moment.

"He's not worth the points you'd lose," Neville said slowly.

Whitney shook her head. "You don't understand," she said. "Boys like him never stop. They poke you and prod you like an animal in a cage." More sparks fell from her wand and her hands began to tremble with years of stored emotion. "They think they're too smart and fast to get hurt, but if just once that animal could bite back."

A final, angry shower of sparks erupted from Whitney's wand.

"I do understand," Neville told her with sad eyes, and she couldn't help but believe him. Her grip on her wand loosened and a faint trail of steam slowly leaked out of it.

"You're better than him, you know," Whitney said stubbornly.

Neville didn't reply. He merely jerked his head in the direction of the common room. Whitney sighed, slipped her wand up her sleeve, and followed him back into the common room.

As the second Quidditch game of the season came around, Whitney felt familiar butterflies return to her stomach. Professor Snape would be the referee, and she wasn't sure how she felt about that. On the one hand, he'd tried to kill her in the last game, but on the other, he would be in plain view of everyone watching. Surely he wouldn't be able to pull something with the eyes everyone in the school on the field, could he?

She didn't have much time to think about it, however, since Oliver was working the team harder than ever. More nights than not, Whitney went to bed exhausted and slept dreamlessly for a few hours before rising with the sun and preparing for class. She was really becoming a pro on the broomstick, though. There was nothing Whitney loved more than the rush of adrenaline she got from flying, and that alone drove her to excel.

Catching the Snitch, however, was a bit more difficult. After hours with her hands wrapped around her broomstick, especially in the cold rain that had been plaguing their practices, it became harder to force her cold, stiff fingers to grasp the Snitch. Angelina, one of the Chasers, lent her a pair of leather fingerless gloves for the game against Hufflepuff, and Whitney found they helped immensely.

She tugged them on before the match and flexed her hands a bit, enjoying the feel of the broken-in leather against her skin. She startled slightly when Oliver knelt in front of her suddenly and looked up into her eyes. Pretty eyes, Whitney decided, then turned slightly pink.

Oliver was looking serious and a little sick. "Now, we know that Snape doesn't really like Gryffindor or Hufflepuff," he told her, "but he really hates us, so we can bet on him favoring the other team. I need you to catch the Snitch before he has too much opportunity to do that, all right?"

Whitney smiled. "Whatever you say, Wood," she said without thinking about it.

Oliver smiled at her. "That's my girl," he said with a nod, then went to go tell the Weasleys off for… something. Whitney couldn't really hear what they were talking about for the blood that had rushed to her ears. She shook her head slightly and went to go splash some water on her face. She ran her fingers through her hair, which had become a slightly darker auburn over the past several months, and pulled it up into a tight tail at the back of her head.

"All right, lions!" she heard Oliver say from behind her. "It's game time."

Whitney grabbed her broom and checked that her wand was securely stowed in her sleeve before heading out with the rest of the team. Some of her elation at her conversation with Oliver was undercut by the nasty expression on Snape's face, but she kicked off from the ground into the air, and forgot everything but the task at hand. The Bludgers and Snitch were released, then the Quaffle, and the game began.

Whitney spotted the Snitch so quickly that she thought she must be mistaken and glanced a second time. It was so near to Snape that it could have been a watch or a button. But hat glimmer was unmistakable and the Hufflepuff Seeker was on the other side of the pitch.

I can catch that, she thought to herself, just as she had the first time she'd rode a broom. I can. I can catch that.

She grinned to herself and fell into a spectacular dive. Her ponytail whipped around her shoulders and neck, leaving tiny welts that she would later display proudly. The wind rushing under her glasses brought tears to her eyes, but she didn't dare blink. Air whistled so loudly in her ears that she couldn't hear the gasping, or the cheering, or the fighting that was going on in the stands.

For the briefest of seconds, her eyes flitted toward Snape to make sure she wasn't in danger of colliding with him. She barely registered his look of shock as she locked her fingers around the Snitch, a scarlet blur marring his vision for a mere instant.

"Up," she verbally urged her broom, pulling up sharply on the handle and banking to the side to avoid slamming into the ground. She spiraled back into the air, arm outstretched above her with the Snitch beating its wings madly to escape.

Whitney was lighter than air as she went to take her broom to the shed after the excitement had died down. She had been great, and being great… well, it was a great feeling. She had impressed everyone, even Dumbledore who had come down from the stands to congratulate her personally. Somehow, though, she was happier with thought of impressing Oliver, who lifted her onto his shoulder with tears in his eyes. He had dropped her, to be truthful, but even the bruise she would have from falling seemed like a victory scar. Aside from Snape and most of the Slytherins, everyone had cheered for her—even the Hufflepuffs who had lost. It seemed to be popular opinion that if anyone was going to beat Slytherin for the Quidditch Cup this year, it was going to be the new Gryffindor team.

Whitney could have danced. Just as she was about to spin in a happy circle, however, movement in the darkness toward the Forbidden Forest caught her attention. She knew that limp. She glanced to the Gryffindor Tower, where she could see fire glow coming from the windows, to the forest, and made a quick decision. She frowned and hopped back on her broom, flying toward the shadows.

Looming in the air, hugging the treetops to avoid casting a Seeker-shaped shadow on the ground, Whitney watched shrewdly as Professor Snape hobbled into a clearing where Professor Quirrell was waiting for him.

"…d-don't know why you wanted t-t-to meet here of all p-places, Severus…"

"Oh, I thought we'd keep this private," Snape said. His voice felt like wet sandpaper against the back of Whitney's neck. "Students aren't supposed to know about the Philosopher's Stone, after all."

Philosopher's Stone, Whitney thought to herself, filing the term away. That must be what Hagrid was talking about.

She hovered as close as she dared, but still couldn't hear anything further until Snape interrupted Quirrell.

"Have you figured out how to get past that beast of Hagrid's yet?"

"B-b-but, Severus, I—"

"You don't want me as your enemy, Quirrell."

Whitney slipped her wand from her sleeve into her hand silently as Snape approached Quirrell with menace. She knew she would only be able to get off a single curse, and nothing that Snape wouldn't be able to undo with a thought, but she felt safer with it in her hand anyway.

She strained her ears to hear what was to be said next, which was probably the reason that the owl in the tree below her startled her. She nearly lost her grip on her wand, but some instinct kept it at her fingertips. By the time she could think about anything by dying a horrible death in the Forbidden Forest, she had missed much of the conversation going on below her.

"We'll have another little chat soon," Snape was telling Quirrell, "when you've had time to think things over and decided where your loyalties lie."

Whitney had heard enough, and Snape was preparing to leave the clearing. She turned her Nimbus 2000 back toward the broom shed, the night chill spreading eerily through her scarlet robes.

Note: Here's that review and response.

my-imagination-is-running: "Was there a reason behind why Whitney saw James first, and not Lily? The way I see it is that you were making Whitney slowly become closer to her father than mother - as oppose to Harry who was much closer to his mother than father."

wujy: "There are a couple of reasons she saw James first. Originally, it was simply because she had very recently been thinking about him after receiving his cloak.

However, Whitney also has felt rather weak her entire life, and would give anything for a father figure's approval."