Chapter Seven: Who knows what I'm writing at This Point!
(All I know is that this is where all the twisted pairings get implied!)
Lylia Letum returned to her classes as any good student would, trying her best to not let her victory in the Dueling Tournament affect her. Nonetheless, the student body as a whole seemed quite impressed. While Hank was overjoyed at the sudden rush of students joining his once-small Hufflepuff Dueling Club, Lylia herself gained somewhat of a cult following along the school underdogs and straight, recently-made-single males (all of whom loathed Elden for implied reasons). While a bit of school fame is nothing bad for a seventeen-year-old girl, attracting the attention of Rita Skeeter is bad for her. Thus, Lylia entered stealth mode as the frightening reporter knocked on Hogwarts' front doors as readily as she would a friend's door. There was much Mission Impossible music.
Hiding in Hogwarts may never be seen as a challenge, Lylia decided, as long as one knows where to curl up and pretend to not exist. She found such a location while running spastically down the hall and desperately seeking refuge. After she found countless doors down the hallway locked, one ornately-carved one swung open and let her in. Slamming the door shut behind her, she turned in the dark room to see a single, pale light falling on a tall and thin object covered with an aged tarp.
"I just don't know where she could have ran off to this time," sighed Kayla as she finished her lunch, accompanying Karen out into one of the long, torchlit corridors. "I had Aidon check the Ravenclaw Common Room, and I even looked around the Grounds…"
"Maybe she got hurt?" Karen proposed. "We should check the Hospital Wing!"
This new idea did nothing to soothe Kayla's worries, but the pair of friends from the most unlikely of compatible Houses ascended all the way to the infirmary in hopes of finding the elusive blonde.
Lylia was nowhere in sight, and most of the Hospital Wing was completely deserted. Karen did, however, notice one bed occupied as she was about to follow the brunette Slytherin out. Asking her to wait a second outside, Karen approached the infirmary's single inhabitant.
"Elden?" She bended forwards a bit to scrutinize the man from a few feet back. He was definitely the same student but, at the same time, a completely different person. He wouldn't look away from the window; his hands sat limply at his sides, his golden hair showing black roots from his lack of care for its colour. Karen extended her hand to take one of his. "Are you okay?"
"Don't touch me." The singular, almost feral growl was simultaneous with his hand's jerk away from hers. His eyes remained miles away, not even glimpsing the girl by his seat. "Get out."
Whether it was out of respect for the man's pride or out of hurt over his sharp rejection, Karen said nothing of the ordeal when she returned to her friends' company throughout the day. Lylia was equally withholding of information, not saying a word at dinnertime when she reappeared. Though Melinda ate enough to fill all of their stomachs, she still found time to speak and offer Draco her untouched drink. His own single statement that evening was an acceptance of the drink. After the others had gone to their dorms, Kayla went instead to talk to Eli.
"Let's see if I can open your lock here…" She went to the huge window's padlock, frowning. "It's a five-letter password that opens it… Eli, do you know it?"
The bird stared at her for a few minutes, and then he began to scratch in the dust at his feet an image that vaguely resembled Talem's mop of hair.
"Ahh," smiled Kayla fondly before she entered "Talem." The seal clicked open, and she slid the lock out from its hold on the window. "Smart bird!"
Eli crooned happily as Kayla pushed open the dirty window and stepped back to let him by. After he stretched his wings once, twice, he propelled himself forward and launched straight out the window, into the open skies. As if watching an award-winning skater performing their best routine, Kayla was entranced by the aerial dance the Occamy performed.
"One of these times, maybe after break, I'm going to get my broom and fly with you," she smiled into the sunset's air.
Nyx was a rather curious snake. She learned it, most likely, from her owner.
That night, well past the witching hour, she silently slid up into the Hospital Wing and gathered herself next to Elden. The Ravenclaw appeared to not notice the snake.
Very put-out upon being ignored, Nyx climbed his hand and poised herself on his leg.
Cold, dead indigo eyes more frozen than ice lowered to the snake. He said but one sentence, and yet he said it with all the decayed malice in the world: "Get off of me."
Nyx left the Hospital Wing as quickly as she could.
Slithering up onto Malfoy's bed after breakfast the next morning, the black king cobra curled up happily on Draco's chest and hissed for him to wake up. He groaned quietly and ignored her. Still curious as to why the boy remained in bed, Nyx hissed louder, shifting her coils obstinately. Malfoy jerked up with a toss off of the bedsheets, leaving the disgruntled Nyx in a pile under them and running straight out of the room.
"Dra?" asked Kayla gently after following her wandering snake to the nearest restroom. Draco adhered to the summons and made his precipitous path from the bathroom, his face a stark white.
"I'm not feeling all that great," he stated the obvious.
And so, Kayla spent her morning not in class but in the Hospital Wing. Nyx had completely refused to go in, resorting to even giving her dear master a warning hiss of resistance so that Kayla would give up on taking her inside. The serpent went right to Kayla's abandoned bed in her dormitory and curled up under it. Kayla had no means of knowing what frightened or angered her pet; there was no one else in the sick bay other than her, Draco, and Pompfrey.
"We can't be sure what's wrong with him," Madam Pompfrey said to Kayla after her initial examination of Draco. "It looks most likely as if it's a small dose of hebona poison."
"Poison?" exclaimed Kayla before she could hold her tongue. "Madam, who would think to do such a thing at Hogwarts?"
"I'm sorry, love," Madam Pompfrey tittered as she went to her office. "I'm a nurse, not a detective…"
Lylia was in almost an equal state of solitude as Kayla was, sitting by herself in Defense Against the Dark Arts to read her newest borrowed spellbook, under her desk's cover from the teacher. She made good use of the bandage on her cut cheek, using it as an excuse to lean her head against her hand when she began to get drowsy from the continuous reading. Although she had found a few nights of sleep, insomnia plagued her as long as she had such engrossing reading material.
In the middle of writing lecture notes on the board, Professor Lestoat announced without turning his head, "Letum! Detention!"
Jerking herself to attention, Lylia groggily tried recalling where she was. Nothing added up once she pieced reality back together: she wasn't doing anything more rebellious than usual... Maybe it was the sundress incident coming back to bite her.
"Sir…?"
"Today. No questions."
Resigning herself to death at the hands of a Potions Master, Lylia gave up on the entire class and went to sleep. Unless Lestoat somehow hid a hauberk under his long cloak, there was no way he could bestow a more painful demise upon her than the one he had already given.
"I'm just doomed," Lylia stated aloud to herself, trudging along the corridor outside the infirmary.
"Why's that?" called Kayla from inside.
"Detention again… Think I should tell Snape? He told me not to get it again…" Lylia trailed off as she entered. "… What's up with Malfoy?"
"He's sick," was all Kayla said.
"Oh… I hope he's well again soon."
"You better go tell Snape, or there's no way you'll be getting better."
"I should tell him about Malfoy being sick?"
"About your Detention, Lyl... I'll go on to my classes too…"
Grimacing at the idea, Lylia complied and went straight to her next class, Potions.
"Professor."
"Yes, Letum?" Snape risked a glance over at her between inspections of her concoction of the day.
"I'm afraid I got Detention with Lestoat again."
Snape sharply dropped his quill into the cauldron. It made the mixture fizz. The quill was suddenly no more. "… You need to go early."
"Early, Professor?"
"At lunch, Letum. Do it." Without another glance in her direction, the Slytherin Head went about checking the rest of the class's potions.
Lylia quickly left the classroom and worked her way against the Hall-bound crowd of students, soon knocking at the Defense Against the Dark Arts room's door.
"Letum? Come on in," invited a sickly sweet voice that made her shiver.
"I've come for lunch instead of after dinner," she explained a bit shakily, opening the door and stepping in as requested.
"Feel free to take a seat anywhere," replied the calm man sitting in his dark chair, his eyes flicking over to her usual chair at the back of the room.
After lunch had ended, Lylia stood up.
"Be seated, if you would," reprimanded her teacher.
"Professor Lestoat, I need to go to class."
"I'm sure there can be an exception in this case," Lestoat smiled widely after a chilling inhale.
"She should be here by now," Kayla commented as she pinched the bridge of her nose. "She's never late for a class. For dinner? All the time. But not for a class."
"I have a free period right now," the oscitant Karen answered as she lifted her head from the lush fall grass. "I bet Hagrid would let you go with me to see about her. Ask him!"
"Screw it, let's go." Her diligence to Care of Magical Creatures forgotten, Kayla tossed her Puffskein into its crate again and took off across the Grounds with the Gryffindor. "I bet I know where we can find her.
"Lestoat!" she banged uncaringly on the door.
"Ah, Miss Hartland," the professor smiled as brilliantly and flakily as ever. "What can I do to help you this fine afternoon?" His eyes glittered with ulterior motives as they found Karen, his smile turning charming. "And how do I deserve the fair, young Karen's visit?"
"We're here for Lylia," demanded Kayla before Karen could swoon. "Hagrid needs her for class."
The smile completely departed from Lestoat's face and sailed to another continent. He stared almost blankly at the Slytherin before saying over his shoulder, "Letum. Leave. Now."
With a whoosh of wind and inward praise of the heavens, Lylia slid past him without any trouble and joined her friends outside the classroom.
Kayla refused to say a goodbye or give her thanks, instead taking Lylia's cold hand and drawing her away to class. Lylia definitely had no complaints about it. Karen, however, turned her head to blow a kiss to her favourite teacher. Lestoat just smirked and gave a wave, miming the catch of the kiss.
"That's pretty disgusting," commented Lylia under her breath.
"No disdaining your saviour," answered Karen with a patting-down of her unruly red curls.
Kayla knew full well that she could go back to classes, but instead she went again to the Hospital Wing and sat at Draco's bedside. Her stomach soon grew fitful in its deprivation of any food that day.
"Knock knock," Melinda said with a faint smile in the doorway.
Turning and half-expecting an asinine remark or witty question, Kayla was surprised to see Melinda just standing at the door, a tray full of food in her hands.
"I heard about him and thought you might be hungry."
"You're… You're a life-saver, Melinda," Kayla struggled for the right words. "I never expected you'd do something like this for me!"
"I may seem… somewhat abrasive," the beady-eyed girl placed the tray down at Malfoy's bedside. "But I know what it feels like to be alone." She stepped back and folded her arms, finishing softly with, "It's best to handle it on a full stomach."
"Professor Snape?" Lylia called quietly into the Potions teacher's office that night and went to the back of it, where the familiar black figure hunched his back over a small flame.
"Letum." He beckoned her over with a small wave.
"I wanted to thank you for-"
"Your hand, please." Without waiting, Snape took her nearest hand and placed a pair of tongs in it, at the end of which a Muggle penny was gripped, dripping a strange liquid in which the teacher had previously soaked it. "Put it over the flame."
Quieting her breath in the silence, Lylia nodded obediently and guided the coin over the orange-blue glow of the fire. Nothing appeared to happen.
"… Professor?"
"Retract your hand," he took her wrist and led the penny off of the fire.
"What was supposed to happen?" Lylia asked him confusedly.
"Magic," Snape answered cryptically, dropping the cooling penny into her hand and nudging her right out of his office.
The Ravenclaw winced as the door slammed shut behind her, walking back to her Common Room and now apparently one cent richer. Huzzah.
"Magic, hm…"
"I hate magic," grumbled Kayla as she finished yet another paper for Professor Lestoat, scribbling down random sentences to fill in the blanks in her writing.
"Is it Lestoat's?" asked Melinda from across the Common Room where she read, on a couch. She gave a small laugh. "Look out for him. He's a creeper."
"No kidding," Kayla managed a tired grin, setting down her quill and rubbing her eyes. "You too?"
"Any sane girl can see that about him." Melinda turned a page in her book.
"What's that you're reading?" asked Kayla.
"The Evolution of Quidditch's Female Teams."
Kayla paused. This girl spoke her language. "You don't say?"
"I know, I know, it's a sparse study. But it's really quite fascinating."
Lylia opened her fist to look down at the penny, halting in her steps.
The penny's copper gleam had turned to a golden shine.
Smiling to herself, she pocketed the penny and climbed to her dormitory.
"Break break break!"
Kayla distantly heard the noise and groaned. "What?"
"Our Equinox break starts tomorrow! C'mon, sleepyhead, get up!"
Something was waaay too familiar about that voice. Kayla opened an eye:
"… Karen."
"Yeah, Kayla?"
"… How did you get into the Slytherin dormitories?"
Karen promptly seized Kayla by the ankles and yanked her clean off the bed. "I'm a ninja!"
A muffled groan was all that emerged from the tangle-haired brunette who had just been made bedless. "Ninjas… should be silent."
"I'm a SPECIAL ninja!" Karen rolled onto the vacated bed. "Get up and get ready! I gotta show you something before tonight, when we all gotta head home for the break!"
"What time is it…?"
"About seven A.M."
"Ugh… Alright, but fast, please. I gotta get back to Draco and see how he's doing."
Kayla handed herself over to the redhead after getting herself presentable, promptly being pulled through a myriad of stairs and halls until the two girls had reached a unique, ornate door.
"What's in here…?" asked Kayla hesitantly.
"You'll see," Karen answered as Kayla was afraid she would, pulling her friend inside the Room of Requirement.
The black room had but one source of light, and it came from overhead in a rather ominous fashion. Kayla stared down a bizarre object in the room's center- or, rather, she stared down the dirty tarp covering it.
"Karen… What is it?"
Karen just strode forward and jerked off the tarp with a swing of her arms, revealing an ancient, pentagonal standing mirror. Runes wound their way along its top, upward-pointing arch.
"It's the Mirror of Erised," she said in a voice betraying the awe she still had for it. "I was shown it just yesterday."
Kayla's hand wandered to her wand, gripping its handle anxiously. "What about it, Karen…? Why are you showing it to me?"
"It's amazing!" sighed Karen happily, her green eyes gazing into the untold depths of the glass as she stood herself in front of it. "When I look in here, I… You see, I was unsure of whether or not I should do something. So I told my friend, and she showed me this thing. Now, I… I definitely know what I want."
"And… What would that be?" Kayla kept her hand on her wand, watching her friend guardedly.
The green eyes began to shimmer with tears. "I… I see myself as being so beautiful."
"Karen!" the concerned Slytherin walked to her and hugged her tightly. "What's wrong…? You're already beautiful!"
"Not like I will be… Y-you'll see… You'll see…" After a faint sob, Karen calmed herself down and nodded at the Mirror of Erised. "Go on, Kayla! Look into it."
Before she could rethink her options, Kayla released the redhead and unwittingly faced her greatest desire. Her heart gave a jolt, breath ragged as she saw herself standing beside a loving husband, two children about their legs and the youngest, third child in her arms.
"… A family," she whispered as if in pain.
"See…? It's beautiful, I bet..." Karen forced a small laugh, beginning to cry again.
Draco was sitting up in his bed as Kayla, still clearing her head, brought him a staple of breakfast.
"Hey," he smiled wryly.
Dropping the food without another thought, Kayla ran and leaped onto the bed, hugging him tightly.
"W-whoa," Draco laughed good-naturedly at the welcome. "It's Saturday, right? And tomorrow's the start of the Autumnal Equinox's vacation?"
His hazel-eyed companion sat back with a bright, infectious smile. "Yeah…"
"I'll need to go home anyway, since I can move and they're sending everyone home," Draco did his best to make it sound casual. "So… How would you like to go home with me and meet my parents?"
Kayla's eyes widened almost too much to be physically safe. "Your… parents?"
"They've been bothering me to bring you over in their letters and such," admitted Draco with an embarrassed grin. "This makes a pretty good excuse for me to-"
"I'd love to!" Kayla threw her arms around him again.
"G-good!" stammered Draco with just about as much alarm as he had the last time she hugged him. "Let's go pack… Could you help me?"
And so, with many awkward stumblings to the right and left, Kayla helped Draco back to the Slytherin dorms.
Madam Pompfrey just shook her head as she watched them go. "One moment I have Mr. Lesperance disappearing from his post, and now Draco's gone and maybe taken out a few other students with him on his way out. When will I ever have just a normal patient…?"
Lylia planted herself by the doors to the Great Hall, watching the exit to Hogwarts as rows and rows of students went out to the carriages and longboats to go home.
"Letum."
Giving a start, Lylia found Severus Snape suddenly standing beside her. "Y-yes, Professor?"
"Why haven't you collected your bags to go home?"
"I… don't quite have a way of going home, Professor."
Snape raised an eyebrow. "The Hogwarts Express and Floo Powder network are perfectly functional, I assure you."
"It's not that, Professor…" Lylia lowered her eyes to her shoes. "I don't have somewhere to be. See, I used to stay with Kayla and her guardian… But since Kayla came here, Ms. Cambridge – her guardian- has been staying with a relative, so…"
"And what is Ms. Hartland doing in this situation?" Snape laced his fingers together in front of himself.
"She's going to a friend's home."
"You are not allowed to remain at Hogwarts during this break."
"… I know, Professor. I apologize."
Snape brushed off his cloak idly, suggesting, "If you wished to… You could stay with me in northern England."
Lylia peered up at him as if to tell if the teacher was joking or not. Upon remembering which teacher she was talking to, the need to see if he was joking or not faded. "You mean it…?"
"I am indeed willing to house you for a short amount of time. If you wish to decline the request-"
"Thank you, Professor." Lylia just smiled quietly and averted her gaze again.
A few days later, Lylia Letum stretched with a yawn and walked out of the bedroom at Spinner's End, still very much in her pajamas as she went to get some cereal for breakfast. Snape was in the small, old den, dialing on the house's phone. Curiosity overwhelming her, Lylia ditched the dining and went to eavesdrop.
Lucius Malfoy had just sat down the four members of the family for breakfast when the wall's phone began to shout.
"It's Snape! Severus Snape calling! Answer the blighter before he decides to leave a bloody message! Snape on the phone!"
"Ignore him," Lucius smiled strainedly at his son's guest. "It's just Tom, The Operator of Metacognition."
"That means it's a phone that thinks it's a person," mumbled Draco in explanation to the still-bewildered Kayla. "A nuance of the Wizarding World, if you will."
"Too true that is," Lucius nodded at his son. "Sorry, Kayla. I must take care to remember that you're not exposed to this sort of thing. What is it like, being a Mudblo-?"
"LUCIUS!" came Narcissa's sharp snap from across the table. Everyone else jumped at least a foot in the air. "Good HEAVENS! Our boy has finally taken an interest in a girl, and you go and use a racial slur against her!"
Lucius's frightened face sought forgiveness. "You're right. Kayla, I apologize."
"It's alright…" Kayla shakily ate her egg.
Within a few minutes, the phone "rang" again. "OI! I said GET the PHONE!" Tom screamed. "This stupid git won't shut up long enough for me to-"
The blaring phone was silenced as the head of the Malfoy residence lifted it from its cranny and smirked. "Severus?"
Kayla watched with wide eyes.
"Snape and Dad are real good friends from back in the day," Malfoy explained once more. "Keeping in touch is hard at Hogwarts, but it's easy when Snape actually goes home, like he must be now."
Lucius listened to Snape's reply then shook his head with a faint grin. "I have no objection to discussing this matter, but would you mind if I put you on speakerphone so the others can say hello? We're just eating breakfast." As the teacher answered unintelligibly on the other end, Lucius set down the phone and clicked a button.
"- would really rather not…" Snape stopped talking when he realized what Malfoy had done. "… Hello."
"Had a nice break so far, Professor?" asked Draco as he grinned into his own hard-boiled egg.
"… Yes, Draco, it has actually been… quite nice."
"Have you called back any of those nice women I introduced you to the last time we all ate at Hogsmeade together?" Narcissa asked pointedly.
"No… I have not called any of those women back." Snape twitched.
"Why haven't you, Severus? They're perfectly nice girls!"
"Narcissa, I'd really prefer not to talk about this right now," the teacher's voice sounded hushed. In contrast, a much louder, female voice came on the line from somewhere in the background.
"What women, Professor?"
"Lylia?" gasped Kayla.
Snape's drain of colour could almost be heard through the phone. "Lyli- Letum, I'm on the phone right now-"
"Hey! Those are the Malfoys, right? Is Kayla over there?" Lylia bounced.
Lucius's grin turned more than a little twisted. "Ooh… she sounds young, Severus..."
"Please, Lucius! This is no time for such joking!" Snape gripped the phone's cord tightly as his cheeks heated.
"And she's calling you Professor, too. Say, is she a student of yours…?"
"Mr. Malfoy, that's my friend Lylia Letum! She's a first-year like I am!" Kayla piped up.
"So this is why you didn't call them, Severus, you sly dog." Lucius was doing all he could not to laugh. "Robbing the cradle, aren't we?"
At this point, Narcissa fainted.
"Hi, Mr. Malfoy!" Lylia chattered happily as she took the phone from Snape. "How're you guys doing?"
"Hi, Lylia!" answered Kayla with a grin that almost mirrored Lucius's. "How're you enjoying your little stay at Snape's?"
"Oh, it's really great! I get to sleep in his bed and everything. It's always warm!"
There was a distinct thumping on the other end of the line that sounded an awful lot like a Potions Master hitting his head against a wall.
"Is that all that's warm?" asked Lucius viciously.
"Oh, no! Everything's warm over here!"
"LETUM." Snape snatched the phone back from the naïve Ravenclaw who thought they were chatting about the weather and hung it up with a swift click.
A few seconds later, the three still-conscious breakfast attendants burst into hysterical laughter.
"I like her," Lucius deemed of Kayla once they could all breathe again. "You treat her well, Draco."
"Yes, Father," Draco rolled his eyes as he smiled.
As the half-month of break rolled to its midway point, Snape made the sudden decision to take Lylia with him back to the castle one evening. She arrived with her bags again by Floo Powder and confined herself mostly to three rooms- the Great Hall, the Ravenclaw Common Room, and the Room of Requirement. In the last of these rooms, she only did one action- staring into the Mirror of Erised. On one night in the Great Hall, however, Flitwick made his arrival back at the school and ate dinner with her. They made pleasant small talk as best as possible.
"I thought your work in the tournament was simply phenomenal," the Ravenclaw Head smiled at her from a short distance above his food.
"Thank you, Sir," Lylia smiled politely back and picked at her own meal.
"I really don't think you should let any of it get to you."
"I beg your pardon?" Lylia looked up again. She didn't have to look very far up from her plate, but still.
"The Daily Prophet, I mean. That Rita Skeeter."
"I'm afraid I don't understand, Professor Flitwick… I don't read the Prophet."
Flitwick's conversational smile drifted off. "Oh. I see… Well, she's said some things."
"What has she said in particular, Sir…?" Lylia put down her eating utensils, stomach flipping in refusal to eat now.
The Charms teacher didn't answer directly this time, just taking out a copy of the newspaper itself and sliding it across to her. There, on the front page, was a picture of Lylia standing quite happily in her pajamas, drinking hot chocolate quite contently right outside Snape's house. The first few lines of the article read:
THE BEWILDERING BEGINNER
Lylia Letum, pictured above outside at Spinner's End, has always been a remarkable student to behold. A girl of unknown parenthood and ordinary childhood has risen to the highest-ranking magic users of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. After the 'tragic accident' of her dearest lover Talem Kyker in the disaster of the Three Broomsticks, what lies in store next for this tragic hero torn by her attraction for danger? Did she start the attack herself, claiming that this new cult of dark wizards calling itself the "Addonexi" did it all? Defeated Elden Lesperance has been nowhere in sight to comment on this issue, as of yet.
Lylia flushed in mortification steadily more as the section progressed, eventually setting aside the paper with a stung exhalation.
"It's utter rubbish," Flitwick assured her as he nudged the Prophet off and onto the floor, as if to prove his point. "Don't listen to a word of it."
Lylia ducked down quickly to retrieve it, unfolding it once more as something occurred to her. "What's this 'Addonexi' bit here?"
"Oh," the Charms teacher seemed relieved to talk about something other than Lylia's reputation. "That's what the rumor is about who attacked Hogsmeade that day. No one knows their intentions, or anything else for that matter… Excuse me. I should go unpack." The pint-sized professor stood and departed quickly with his bags.
The Ravenclaw just nodded numbly as he left, her eyes glued to the single epithet 'dearest lover.' Slandering her name was just fine with her… But now she was slandering the name of the dead. Someone who indeed was very near to her among the dead.
Tossing the Daily Prophet into one of the fireplaces as she passed, Lylia strode from the Great Hall and rounded a corner to begin her trek back to the Ravenclaw Tower.
A week later she made the very same motion to depart from the Great Hall; an arm crossed in front of her, blocking her path as it connected to the wall beside her.
"Lylia," smiled Professor Lestoat courteously. "How was your vacation?"
She shuddered and took a tiny step back, into the corner. "It was quite enjoyable… And yours…?"
"As pleasant as always. I did, however… miss my students greatly." Lestoat leaned in to match the distance she retreated, preserving the same space between them.
"Professor!" called a thankfully-familiar voice from down the hall, at the entrance. There stood Aidon Haynes, his height increased by at least half a foot but his muscular width easily twice that he bore before. His previously lanky appearance had completely been shattered by this new, toned teen before them. "Professor Snape is calling you to the Astronomy Tower."
Lestoat growled in the back of his throat but made no objection, departing without a farewell to either of them.
"A-Aidon...?" Lylia openly stared. "What happened to you?"
The Prefect closed his eyes as proudly as always, pinkening childishly at the remark. "For your information, I simply stayed at my brother's farm. All of his farmhands were sick, so I did the work myself. That's all."
"Did Professor Snape really-?"
"No." The do-good Ravenclaw gave an almost-easygoing smile as he walked on past her. "Watch out for yourself, alright, Letum? I can't always be lying to save you."
Lylia shook her head incredulously, sinking dizzily to the floor once she found herself alone again.
"Lylia!" Kayla ran through the doors to Hogwarts, practically tackling the grounded blonde.
"Hiya, Kayla!" Lylia hugged her back almost as tightly, her smile blotting out any sign of the problem just passed. "Did you and Draco enjoy the time off?"
"Yeah!" The Slytherin stood, tugging Lylia up as well.
"How are the nightmares?"
Kayla's smile faded. "Hm…?"
"Karen told me you'd been having nightmares. She can't do anything about them, but she said you'd want me to know…" Lylia was looking past Kayla, into the Great Hall.
The brunette's brows furrowed. "How did she know something like that?"
"Karen's always known weird things… You and I both know that. But… Well, you just have to see for yourself. She's… different."
Kayla turned to follow Lylia's line of sight, finding Karen in the center of the Great Hall. "Oh my God…"
As Karen caught sight of the pair's gaze on her, she stood up and happily strode her way over to them. A new, enticing sway fell from her hips at every step, but the greatest change was above them. Her once-crazy hair fell in luxurious waves from a perfect scalp, her perfect face shone in the candlelight and firelight like an angel's features, and every flawless curve in her body didn't need to show itself for Kayla to know it was there.
"Hiya, guys!" Karen beamed brilliantly at them.
"Wow… Puberty's been very kind, huh…" Kayla mumbled her reply, still taken aback.
Lylia said nothing for some time, just eyeing Karen cagily. "I think I'll be heading up to bed," she finally spoke up, walking off in the direction of the Ravenclaw Tower.
"I think I made someone jealous," sighed Karen with a patronizing smile.
"I doubt that's the case," Kayla averted her eyes now as well, heading the opposite way to go to the Slytherin Dungeons.
Karen shrugged innocently before she went back into the Great Hall. "Whatever, I guess."
Melinda silenced her as she sat down again by stuffing a chicken leg into her mouth. "Just digest this, please. You make me worry."
Sulking where she sat by the Slytherin, Karen quickly spat out the chicken and waited for the hours to pass. "You think everything'll go back to normal now that classes will start again?"
Melinda turned a page in the Daily Prophet, not looking up:
"Since when are things ever normal here?"