Chapter 3

A high-pitched shriek woke Io from her slumber. Disoriented at first, she looked around until she remembered where she was. She hastily opened the curtain to find out what was going on.

„That nasty blood-traitor scum! How dare he-"

Abigail was desperately trying to get out of a black top that appeared to be shrinking by the second and resisting all attempts to be taken off. Io got up quickly and grabbed her wand without a second thought.

„Diffindo!"

A neat slash along the seam appeared and freed Abby from the piece of clothing. It fell to the floor and kept shrinking until it all but dissapeared.

„Th-anks," Abby stammered, still catching her breath.

Cadi hastily entered the room with a towel around her head.

„Are you alright? I heard someone scream."

Abby shook her head in anger.

„Black," she spat out.

It didn't take long until Io found out exactly who had earned Abby's scorn. When they entered the Great Hall, the blonde girl headed straight for the Gryffindor table.

The smug kid turned around to her stream of insults with an innocent expression.

The entire student body paused and turned to listen.

„But, Sugarplum- What ever is the matter? Is it that time of the month again?"

„You-", Abby's face had turned a violent shade of red.

„-lovely human being? Beautiful young stallion?"

She flicked out her wand and held it to his throat. The boy's smug smile shrunk a size or two.

„I will hex you into next week you bloody, disgusting-"

The two boys beside him were about to jump up and defend him, when the stern voice of Professor McGonagal interrupted.

„That is quite enough, Miss Rosier."

Abby seemed to consider hexing the boy anyway, but finally turned around and moved away, still fuming. The boy got up and stretched out his hand in mock longing.

„Don't leave, Buttercup! We can fix this!"

„Detention, Mr. Black."

„What?!", he and the other two boys yelled unisono.

„But Professor, he didn't do anything! Rosier, she-", the dark haired boy with glasses tried to reason.

„Clearly had a reason, Mr. Potter."

„But that's no fair!", the chubby blonde one exclaimed.

„One more word from either of you and you will both be joining Mr. Black."

The chubby boy opened his mouth in outrage and closed it again with a petulant expression. The boy named Black patted his arm in a placating manner as Professor McGonagal moved away with an exasperated sigh.

Almost immediately the great hall returned to its cheery chatter. Io looked around for Abby, but she must have left without breakfast.

Cadi sank down next to her and grabbed some toast and butter. Io was surprised by the nonchalance of the student body after what had just happened. She wondered whether that meant this type of thing was a regular occurence.

„So... does that happen a lot?"

Cadi nodded with a distinct air of annoyance as she motioned to Black and Potter.

„Yeah. Those two love their stupid little pranks. You'd think they'd grow out of it at some point...", Cadi shook her head. „Pettigrew usually tags along, the little git." She looked over to the other table and frowned. „Huh, usually Lupin's with them. Must be sick again. He's alright, but you know, guilty by association and all that."

Io glanced over to the other table. The trio looked rather subdued, but then again they held what looked like a heated whispered conversation. Io frowned in spite of herself, then forced herself to turn away.

She took the exact same food Cadi had. Just in case.

Io had always thought of herself as fairly clever. The first lesson in the morning proved her wrong.

Some of the things Professor Flitwick discussed sounded vaguely familiar, however when she looked around nobody else looked as lost as she felt. In fact the classroom buzzed with excitement as the other pupils teamed up to practise the Transcendence spell.

She had been teamed up with Ophelia, a quiet Ravenclaw girl, who appeared nice enough. Io threw a stealthy glance toward the blackboard. Focus on blankness, then... swirl the wand in an entrancing manner? Spi-ra-sci-o. Spir-a-scio. Spira-scio!

Ophelia smiled at her vaguely. „I'll start."

Io nodded and tried to relax. She looked at Ophelia, who began to move her wand in a spiraling motion.

„Spirascio!"

At first nothing happened. Io frowned at the wandtip that was definitely too close to her face for her liking. It's alright, Io tried to calm herself. She felt the runes burning up under her skin, growing more irritating by the second. Io leaned away out of instinct.

Then her mind went blank.

A few moments later Io looked up in confusion. Somehow she had landed on the floor. Ophelias pale face appeared over her.

„I'm so sorry. Are you allright?"

Io got up quickly, hoping no one had noticed. Her head was spinning.

„What happened?"

Ophelia smiled apologetically. „You kept leaning backwards until you fell."

„Oh." Io felt the heat creeping onto her face.

When she noticed Professor Flitwick moving towards them, she quickly grabbed her wand in the hopes of escaping the embarassment of the situation.

„My turn."

Whatever Io was focusing on, however, it wasn't blankness. She stammered „Spira-scio!" and a blazing white light flashed. Ophelia covered her eyes, crying out in pain. The students around them turned away quickly, a few dove under their desks to escape the blinding light.

„Finite incantatem."

Professor Flitwick flicked his wand and the spell was broken instantly.

Ionia wished she knew how to dissaparate or make the ground swallow her on the spot. She wouldn't even mind if she could just drop dead this instant. Anything but this.

She heard someone snicker.

„Keep practicing. It's all in the spiral movement," a lighthearted voice chimed next to her.

When she raised her head, Flitwick had already moved on to another pair.

Ophelia rubbed her stinging red eyes and blinked a couple of times. When she turned to a mortified Ionia, she gave her a friendly smile anyway.

„Let's just practice the wand movement first, shall we?"

Io nodded gratefully.

When Flitwick dismissed them, Ionia was positive the headmaster would soon realize his mistake and kick her out. Not only had she made an utter fool of herself in front of the entire class, but Ophelia had gone over to talking to her as if she was a toddler.

On their way to the next class Elaine showered Io with words of encouragement, that she would soon catch up, that it was all a matter of practice, that she would just have to wait and see. Io sighed dramatically but didn't argue.

Ancient Runes was a disaster.

The students at Hogwarts were expected to be fluent in Elder Futhark runes for their translations, while Io had only ever studied the Standard Issue of Proto-Germanic runes at home. She struggled to keep up with the class and had to look up several runes under the table. Professor Babbling caught her twice.

Elaine still found it in her to look at the bright side, at least Io would be ahead when they'd use other sets of runes.

Care of Magical Creatures was worse.

Everyone else seemed to be doing fine with their Porlocks. But whenever Io approached the shaggy little beast in front of her, it took flight. Once she came too close to the horses and the Porlocks bared their pointy little teeth with a fierce growl. When Professor Kettleburn finally took pity on her, she was sent to clean out the Porlock manure.

Elaine shut up when she saw Io's crestfallen face and used a cleaning charm on her instead that made Io smell like a very clean lemon.

So when Io arrived at her first class of Arithmancy she expected the worst. At least Elaine wouldn't be there to encourage her some more, she tried to console herself.

Professor Wenlock expected them to combine their theoretical knowledge of Celtic numerology with the Anglian translations of Hieroglyphs to make sense of Ancient Egyptian spellwork.

While she had been fairly confident in her knowledge of celtic numerology, she had no idea what she was even supposed to do here. Io felt like crying. There didn't appear to be any numerological system to the words or the glyphs. Again, no one else seemed to have trouble with the task. When the time had passed to turn in their work, Io had a pounding headache.

But it was Transfiguration that finally made her snap.

On the up side, it was the last class for the day. On the down side, she was late. Ionia had no clue how anyone ever got anywhere on time in this castle. She had taken the wrong turn and suddenly found herself two levels higher than she had wanted to go.

So when Io arrived, class was about to start. She hurried inside and darted toward the closest open seat.

„Is that seat taken?", she stammered out of breath. When the boy turned and looked at her in surprise, she realized her mistake.

„Erm- sure?"

Clearly she had chosen the crimson section of the room. Although she'd only been a Slytherin for a day, she knew she wasn't supposed to fraternize with the enemy.

At that exact moment Professor McGonagall cleared her throat and Io had no choice but to sit down. Some of her Slytherin classmates turned to look at her in disbelief. Abby shook her head theatrically. Cadi facepalmed.

„Well, hello there..." an amused voice whispered closeby. The black haired boy one seat down from her had leaned back in his chair to grin at her.

It was the smug kid. Ugh.

Turning tail and running out of the classroom suddenly seemed tempting. Instead, Io willed herself to focus on Professor McGonagall who had just made a goblet appear and filled it with water.

„Having a good time so far?", he teased.

That's right. They'd had Care of Magical Creatures with the Gryffindors. An angry blush heated her cheeks.

„Must be lousy at Slytherin, if she's already seeking refuge with us," another voice mused. Io would bet a galleon that it belonged to Potter.

„Or she's just lousy at being a Slytherin and they don't want her."

Io locked her jaw. Professor McGonagall was talking about conjuration in concept, they would start with-

„I hear Porlock manure is really beneficial, though."

Io turned toward Black with a murderous glare, only to find that his face was inches away from hers. She clenched her fist, ready to damn it all to hell. The runes on her chest were burning painfully, spurring her on.

He chuckled at her angry hiss.

„Merlin, Sirius, cut it out."

A pale hand grabbed Sirius' arm and pulled him back.

„Killjoy."

The other boy shook his head in annoyance.

„Oh, Moony Schmoony, don't be mad..."

„Mr. Black, do you want to spend the rest of the year in detention?"

Sirius looked up and found Professor McGonagall standing right in front of them.

„Anything to be close to you, Professor", he responded with a radiant smile.

„Front row. Now."

Sirius grabbed his belongings and relocated with a tragic sigh right next to a very annoyed Severus.

The Professor handed out brass cups to all of them and filled them with water. They were supposed to vanish the water, but not the cup. Io read through her notes, but she couldn't make sense of what she had written down. She sighed in defeat.

The boy sitting next to her seemed to notice her distress. He bit his lip and hesitated for a moment, then he pushed a scroll over to her side of the table. It showed the methodology of conjuration, something they had apparently studied the week before.

Io peered down at the neat handwriting. That... made sense. She glanced over to her saviour, but he had already directed his attention to the cup again.

She went back to his notes, then read through her own. So the vanishing charm was less than the opposite of a conjuration, as nothing was less than the opposite of everything? Io pondered this. However if it followed the same logic in essence...

She turned to her cup and visualized the different textures of copper and water and separated them in her mind.

„Evanesco!"

The water in her cup quivered. Io smiled in astonishment. She hadn't expected anything to happen at her first try.

When she looked up she caught the boy next to her smiling faintly in return. He looked nice when he smiled. Only now did Io see the grey streaks in his hair and the tired lines on his face. Was he ill?

„So, what now, Professor?"

Io turned to see Sirius looking even more pleased with himself than usual, swinging back and forth with his chair. Professor McGonagall inspected his cup and refilled it wordlessly with a flick of her wand.

„How about I help the new girl instead? I think she really needs it", he fake-whispered in mock concern.

Io gaped at him in terror. How dare that little-

The Professor however simply ignored him and went on to see how the other students fared. Sirius turned around and caught Io's outraged stare. And then he winked.

The water in Io's cup began to foam dangerously. That. was. it.

Then three things happened at once: The hindlegs of Sirius' chair vanished, her cup melted and Io blacked out.

When she came to a few seconds later, the first thing she heard was roaring laughter.

Sirius' chair had tipped over and - supposedly while falling - he had taken down the water filled cups of the row behind him. Hence a very wet Sirius was looking around incredulously and held his head where he had banged it.

Those that were laughing already - namely the Slytherins - howled at the dumbfounded expression on his face, while the rest couldn't help but at least snicker at his misfortune. The loudest howls however came from his friend, Potter, who'd gotten up for standing ovations.

Only the boy next to Io wasn't looking at Sirius at all. He was staring at Io.

Uh-oh.

She suddenly realized her skin was radiating heat and leaned away from him, searing pain shooting through her skin as she moved. But the damage was done; she could see it in his eyes.

Io gave him a pleading look. His eyes widened.

She looked away and saw Professor McGonagall inspecting the two legged chair with what looked like an impressed smirk. McGonagall swung her wand easily and the chair grew another pair of legs.

„Now, calm down", McGonagall reproved the class.

The laughter died down almost instantly, although Abby was still hiccuping and had to press her hands against her mouth.

„The next one to disturb this class, will leave and not come back. Have I made myself clear?"

The following silence was absolute. Sirius sat back down and glanced over his shoulder. When he caught Io's rueful expression a slow smile started to spread across his face.

In a sudden bout of telepathy, Io knew exactly what he was thinking: Oh, it was on.