Hogwarts was good at a lot of things – putting students at harms way one of them – but there were few things that they did better than gossiping. As a bunch of teenagers locked up in a mythical old castle, there wasn't much to do except talk. Audrey normally would go to sleep peacefully to wake in the next morning to a bunch of some interesting news running around Slytherin's table, information dripping around like candy. Therefore, was no surprise when she woke in her first day and the news of whereabouts of Potter and Weasley last night had already found their way to Daphne Greengrass, the most informative second year Audrey could think of.

They wake up to the morning bell ranging in their dorm, bleary eyed and confused by the still half-dark room – Slytherins dorms never got sunlight, therefore they were never completely illuminated, no matter how many candles the elves put around. Audrey hated it in the same intensity she had learned to love – she missed the morning sun but also had learned to think of her dorm as homely as a dungeon could be.

She also liked the water.

The girls went to the great hall together, but things got interesting as they finally arrived in the Slytherin table. As early as Audrey liked to awake, half of her year had already gathered around the delicious breakfast food, a pack of little snakes happily talking to each other about their summer holidays.

Zabini was the first one to notice them, caramel eyes flickering boringly around the girls for a second. Despite the utter terror look that Audrey shoot Daphne – her mind went back to a certain list they made in the summer and how about both of her friends had made clearly that Zabini more or less liked her or something (she hadn't made up her mind about it, yet) – her blonde friend happily seated herself in front of the boy, and all Audrey could do was exchange a look with Sophie before they followed Daphne.

"Morning, Blaise", the girl said cheerfully. "How was your summer?".

He took his time, munching on some of his toast. "Nice. Yeah, I think. Hello, Roper. Blanchard."

She blinked. "Morning" and put her attention solely into the fruits she was carefully picking to her plait. If there was a thing that Audrey hated was having the attention of boys – she never knew if was because her powers were going haywire, losing to control to a part of herself she never knew if she had or not. Either way, she always had this little voice in the back of her head telling her – will someone ever really like you?

"Hey, Blanchard. Have you heard what you little blood-traitors lion friends had done now?", Draco called, making sure his voice was loud enough to Audrey to hear. There was no love lost between Audrey and Malfoy, as half Slytherin knew; he was too brash, she was to keen in keeping herself out of the way of anyone. They never mixed, and even less since their shared detention last year – Audrey could never forget him calling her a freak.

Some cuts went deeper than intended, she supposed.

"Are you talking about them disappearing last night?", Sophie pipped up, her head turned like a confused dog. "Spill out, Malfoy".

"Apparently little Potter and that poor-excuse of wizard Weasley stole an enchanted flying muggle car. No idea where they found it, but what do you think Roper? Maybe now they will be expelled, uh?"

"They did what?", her voice became an octave higher as her eyes almost popped out of the sockets. "Where the hell they found a car and charmed it to fly?"

Sophie, one to never engage herself very much in other people affairs, shrugged while picking on her food, already losing interest into it. But Daphne, who was an endlessly pit of chitchat – about everything and everyone – batted her eyelashes excitedly. "Oh, so this is what Hale was talking about last night. Did they fly all the way up from London?".

"I wish I could do nice stuff like this, but all I did was getting myself stuck with our resident prom queen all the summer", Sophie spoke loudly, and Audrey kicked her shin out of habit than irritation.

"Shut up. I let you explore Blanchard House all you wanted".

"Yeah, messing up your grandparents' stuff was so fun, prom queen. Why didn't they have any of that cool dark stuff? What kind of purebloods are you?"

Audrey had to blink to that. "The decent kind?"

"I would call it boring", Sophie replied quickly, throwing a piece of bread her way. It stuck on Audrey's plaited braid she had spent half an hour in the morning carefully doing just for first day lucky. She carefully picked out of the pale blonde hair strands and breathed out, half annoyed. "What's the deal with Potter, anyway? I haven't seen a week without him doing some crazy, potentially deathly thing".

"He likes all the attention, of course", Draco said. "I suppose a loser like him never got much from that filthy muggle parents he lives with. Now likes to pamper himself around being a little star".

"That's just mean, Draco", Audrey breathed, as Pansy by Draco's side laughed loudly. She was another classmate who Audrey never spent a lot of time around; They just ran in different circles. Audrey liked to stick to her girls, list of boys and all that, while Pansy spent half of her time roped in the boy's dorms, where her best friends were. But, unlike Malfoy, Pansy never had been blatantly rude to Audrey nor her friends, just clearly dismissive as if she couldn't care less about their existence.

Well, as a kid, Audrey always imagined herself throwing pyjama parties with the girls in her dorm since the day she discovered she would go to a boarding school. Not going to happen, apparently.

"What do you care, Blanchard?", Draco raised an eyebrow.

"I don't", she said quickly, trying to get herself out of the spotlight. "Anyway, where do you think they got that car? My dad would pay a fortune for one of those".

Sophie blinked, and her eyes flickered for a half a second to the Gryffindor table. "Maybe some Weasley charmed it? Sounds stupid and illegal but… Each one to their own."

Audrey shrugged. "Not my problem".

Daphne, to her defence, was clearly lost in thought, her eyes focused to Astoria, a couple of seats down in the Slytherin table, proudly wearing the plain dark Hogwarts uniform, the green of the snakes glistering against the warm morning sun. She looked nice, Audrey thought – but, again, all the Greengrass had a kind of likeliness to herself, and Audrey was known for being pretty.

Mom's thing, she supposed. Half the Blanchards were called either plain looking or just blatantly ugly, after all.

The mail arrived with the rushing sound of too many owls flying in the great hall, partly silencing the discussion Audrey's friends. As always, her granddad favourite owl, Legacy, landed gracefully in front of her, its dark wings still ruffled from the way between London and Hogwarts. Audrey smiled, and the owl let a soft chirp, happily extending his feet where a plainly looking package had been safely tied to.

For my sunshine, as a good luck charm.

"Thanks, Legacy", Audrey said, giving the owl a piece of her toast as a gift. The owl gave her a happy hoot, before flying back to her home as gracefully as she could. Audrey cleaned her hands in a napkin, and carefully started opening her new gift; she couldn't wait to see what kind of trinket and candies her granddad had send her to cheer up the first morning of school. But before she had finished ripping apart the paper, a piercing scream filled the great hall so loud that for a second Audrey could swear it was coming from inside her own head.

In the other side of the hall, in lion's den, Ron Weasley and Harry Potter – as she should've have expected – looked mortified.

Audrey had never been a common magic child. Her dad, traumatized and terrified of his own magic, never had been prone to use any kind of magical devices if he could avoid; but even her, raised more like a muggle than anything else, knew what a Howler was – and what a little powerful thing, so high that even the Slytherins had to fall silent, confused by the mess that – apparently Mrs. Weasley – was doing.

"- ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED - YOUR FATHER'S FACING AN INQUIRY AT WORK, IT'S ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT AND IF YOU PUT ANOTHER TOE OUT OF LINE, WE'LL BRING YOU STRAIGHT BACK HOME."

Finally, the silence fell again, and Audrey had to hold a giggle, half amused and half terrified of even being the target of such aggressive little magical trinket. Sophie blinked, dumbfounded, because even her with one of the longest list of detentions between the youngest students of Hogwarts, had never won a Howler.

"Well, at least now we know who owned the car", Audrey dismissed, turning her attention to her package – where a pretty, little necklace with a little cat hanging on it and a bunch of home-made sweets waited for her – but with the image of Harry Potter flushed pink popped in her mind.

Interesting morning, indeed.

X

Audrey never thought of her life as eventful.

She was a quiet quality to herself she liked to keep it. Despite being good with people and never finding trouble with friendship, she never liked drawing much attention to herself. Audrey liked her life just like that – easy, safe, and almost boring, and had achieved it perfectly so far. In the last year, her first full-year into magical life, she had gathered some nice companionship and only got into trouble once; her professors liked her and her grades were nice enough to help guarantee her House points enough to always threaten Gryffindor supremacy – happily guaranteed by Dumbledore, who never hide he played favourites.

If she knew her second year would be the end of all that comfortable safety she had carefully build, well – perhaps Audrey would've tried hard to keep herself out of Hogwarts. She would even beg to be raised as a muggle, into a muggle school if necessary – giving up her magic and all that – but of course that in the beginning of September 1992, she knew none of that.

Her school year began peacefully. She had History of Magic in the mornings, which meant some more hours of sleep if necessary, and very few shared classes with Gryffindor – which meant a lot less dram. Sophie was her assigned partner at Potions, which meant someone who was willing to help her with numbers and all that, and, by the fact that Transfiguration was her favourite subject, McGonagall had gladly taken her under her wing. Lockhart was a joke – as she predicted – but he seemed harmless, and for that she was grateful; no need for her grandmother to step up and bring Hogwarts down, apparently.

She still studied with Hermione, sometimes, in the library – specially in the weekends, when Daphne would wander around with her sister around and Sophie would get her new broom to train non-stop for hours. Sometimes, Potter or Weasley would come around, asking questions or help with homework – she never minded much, to Hermione horror, just pushing her things in their way with a raised eyebrow that meant – you know you are in my debt now, right?

By the first month, Sophie went in a rampage because Malfoy had bought his way into the Slytherin Team and she would be kept out of it no matter what, because the only empty spot – seeker – had been taken by Draco. She sulked by a whole week, before Audrey finally snaped, went directly to Harry and said – "I will do your monthly homework if you crush Slytherin in the next game".

He laughed, loudly. "I don't care why you became a traitor all the sudden, but we have a deal".

The deal seemed even better after – somehow – Weasley started throwing up slugs because of Malfoy. Audrey never asked why, because at this point, she learned that some things are better left unsaid.

But in October, with a chill that left half of the students sick with a flu – including Audrey – she also started to lose control, piece by piece, and her life crumble by her fingers. Starting by the flu, to which she became a huge fabric of disgusting fluids and was obligated by all of the girls in her dorm to seek Madam Pomfrey after her endless awful mood; Pomfrey had been merciless and gave her a potion bad enough to make her vent by the ears, the taste so bitter Audrey could swear she were going to throw up.

Halloween came like a threat after an awful month of boring classes and terrible weather. Of all the Scottish things about Hogwarts, the thing Audrey hated the most was the weather. She missed dearly the Californian sun and the times where her dad – or some of her nannies – could just take her to the beach, her skin glowing golden and the feeling of ocean water in her hands. Scotland was harsher, cutting her body until the bone with cruel winds and weathers turns, and the winters were the worst. She never cared much about Halloween either – she hadn't been asking for trick or threats since she was six and Eleanor Thomas, the best babysitter she had ever get, had taken her two years in a row. Her dad always had been missing in Halloweens, coming back after a day or three smelling like alcohol and colognes that wasn't his. But Halloweens in Hogwarts weren't bad – she had a full banket to eat until she felt bloated and happy, and a warm bed to sleep with Cat by her side, after hours talking to her friends about nothing and everything at all.

She was quite happy, at least at this. Well-feed and quite warm, she and Daphne walked with arms linked out of the Great Hall, their bodies sleepy by the excess of food. Around her, the whole Slytherin sounded cheerful and trying to do some last-minute pranks, hairs suddenly popping in different colours and laughs rolling around collectively. Even Draco had sounded quite nice today.

"We should throw a party!", someone screamed behind them, since the younger years always went first, like a pack of scared sheep trying to keep themselves out of the way of some less than well thought prank. "I'm sure we can get some firewhisky", another sixth-year shoot back, and Sophie shoot Audrey a look. "C'mon, we can have better things than this", a boy answered, and someone laughed.

"Do you think they could get us some butter beers?", Daphne asked, dreamily. "I had some in the summer. They were so, so good".

Audrey, who never had butter beer – and supposed they weren't quite common back home – couldn't disagree. She had heard some people talking about it and couldn't wait for the next year, when they would be allowed to visit Hogsmeade in the weekends – which meant a better access to candies and butter beer. But before she could answer her friend – offering herself to convince a older student to grab some for them – the whole Slytherin pack stopped suddenly, and Audrey almost collided with Astoria, who was in front of her.

"What the bloody hell?", Sophie murmured, in tiptoes to try and see what was happening. But Audrey was at least a head taller than both girls – and the first years in front of them – and easily saw what was written in the wall of the corridor, red against the darkness of stone, still fresh if the reflexes from candlelight was anything to go by.

Her heart stopped a beat and Daphne hold tightly into her arm, but Audrey couldn't feel it very much, because her head was suddenly very, very dizzy.

THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED.
ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE.

Someone screamed and voices went from zero – the silence of shock – to a million, but she was half-deaf to any of it. Under the letters, written in blood red (it could only be blood), was a cat, made of pure stone and, with a lurch, Audrey noted it was Mrs. Norris – the caretaker's cat – but her mind was already spinning and as she blinked, Mrs. Norris transformed into Cat. But the worst was the trio around the crime-scene, as Hermione, Ron and Harry stood directly in front of it, their backs straight as planks.

"Enemies of the Heir, beware! You'll be next, Mudbloods!"

Draco screamed, somewhere by her left. Audrey wished she had the strength to tell him to shut up, just because he was being rude, again – but as she had no idea at all about what the Heir was supposed to be (half the Slytherin was heir to something, including her), there's much she could say, neither the energy as her mind was still buzzing with the primal fear in her guts.

Oh, if she only knew.

A/N I'M SORRY I DON'T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED.

But I'm back. I had a whole A/N here but just... Ignore it. I'm sorry. Its fixed now LOL