Ron and Harry were very eager to hear Edward's direct account of his detention with Snape at breakfast next morning. In fact, they practically bounced onto him at the Great Hall entrance as soon as he set one foot in it, their faces tensed with anticipation.

"Lines?" Ron uttered the word disbelievingly after the three of them have secured their usual seats at Gryffindor table.

"Uhuh." Edward nodded absentmindedly while pouring sugar on his porridge "Six hundred of them."

"Seriously? That's all?" Ron placed both his elbows on the table and leaned forward, his feature full of anticipation like he was waiting for Edward to deliver some sort of punchline.

"What was you hoping for, exactly?" Edward quipped dryly.

"What? I'm glad you got off easy and everything, but it's hard to imagine that Snape would only give something simple as lines for punishment."

"Why?" Edward asked curiously.

Ron shrugged

"'Cause Snape is the nastiest git ever to have come into existence? I don't know; perhaps I'm spending too much time hanging around with Fred and George. You should have listened to them. They went on for hours about how you were going to be fed to the bats that Snape keeps in his dungeon."

"Snape keeps BATS?" Edward pictured the scenario in his head with some alarm. Impossible though the idea was, the most disturbing part was that in his mind it didn't seem too farfetched.

"Beats me. There are loads of bats in the castle, but they usually only show up on Halloween. Wouldn't surprise me if he owns some of them though. But you shouldn't take my brothers too seriously; they spent weeks convincing me that new students have to wrestle with the giant squid at the lake to before getting to the castle." Ron bit into his toast "Anyways, getting lines isn't so bad."

"Well, he did make me clean a mountain of cauldrons afterwards." Edward shrugged.

"Oh, the cleaning punishment, eh? I bet Fred and George have scrubbed every room there is in this castle."

"But Snape let me use magic." Edward said.

"Huh? Why would he do that?" Harry was puzzled. If it was cleaning by magic, he had seen Edward do it loads of time back at the Dursleys. The whole process didn't even take more than two seconds.

"He knows we haven't learned that spell yet. I mean, we still can't levitate a feather properly. How the heck could us first year clean something with magic?"

Ron continued digging into his breakfast enthusiastically after letting that casual comment loose, not noticing that, on either side of him, a dead silence had descended. Edward sat frozen in his seat for a good five seconds, his heart sinking. A chill suddenly run up his spine. A part of the conversation from last night floated to the front of his mind. A detail he had thought of as trivial at the time, was turning into something much more meaningful and important.

"Which spell did you use?"

"Why would I need a spell to clean, sir?"

Harry was staring at him intently. He had just been about to tell Ron that Edward can clean stuff without magic just fine, but catching the sight of Edward's startled look had made him held his tongue. Something on his friend's face told him that Edward wouldn't particularly appreciate his contribution into this part of the discussion.

Edward snapped out of his reverie and turned to face Ron.

"There is a spell for cleaning?" he asked casually, trying to hide the knot of worry that was growing in his stomach.

Ron nodded.

"Multiple. My mom uses them all the time. I honestly don't know how Muggles manage to keep their houses clean without magic."

"But Snape cleaned up the potion yesterday without any spell."

"Oh, that was nonverbal magic. You know, say a spell inside your head instead of out loud. That's really advanced though. I don't think we'll be able to touch that until about our fifth year."

Edward nodded absently and turned back to his own breakfast without any appetite. In his short time here, he had come to understand one very significant piece of information: he was different. Not the kind of slight difference between those who did well in his class and those who didn't, but more of a completely-out-of-place kind of difference. Back when he was staying at Privet Drive, when the only other magical person in the house was Harry, he had thought it was common to be able to command magic naturally like he could. He had floated furniture around, vanishing trash, conjuring items out of thin air … without really thinking about it. He knew better now. No one his age could do things like that, be it wand or wandless. He still did magic his way freely around Harry, but he had started to be more cautious around everyone else. In class, he pretended to use his wand, even though its actual usage would without fail involve the spells blasting him in the face (and they did). He mimicked the other students about what they could and couldn't do. He thought by doing that he could try to be more, well, normal. But yesterday, he had made a mistake. He had assumed that cleaning was something so simple that it wouldn't need a spell or wand, and he had performed something that was supposed to be super hard nonverbal spell right in front of a teacher. No doubt Snape was onto him now.

Well, not so much he can do about it now. Edward sighed as he pulled out his timetable, wondering if the feeling of someone's gaze from the teacher table on back of his head was just his imagination. He didn't turn back to find out.


The castle was huge. What with the sheer enormity of its size, coupled with its rotating staircases, disappearing doors and hidden passageways, one was bound to lose his way often. Edward lost count of how many times he was late to his lesson because the portrait which he asked for direction decided to play a prank on him and pointed him in the opposite direction. However, he finally got the hang of it and by now could navigate pretty well. Once he had memorized the paths that led to classes, he turned to exploring. He liked to close his eyes and feel the flow of magic inside the castle, letting it pull him around and seeing where he would go. The journey was often one without purpose, but today he knew exactly where he would go. He had sensed a spot of magical abnormality a little while ago and finally found some time to investigate. The location was nowhere near the forbidden corridor, so a short trip there couldn't hurt. Probably.


Beta: FlyingLovegood123