So, I've been on a really long hiatus (holy shit has it been a year already? Really sorry about that...) and I'm surprised to find people still following and favouriting this fic. Thanks so much, all of you. Especially you, Guest reviewer (you know who you are) who have been sending me short messages that are both encouraging and at the same time, somewhat... ominous. Thanks for that.

Anyway, yes, I have a new chapter for you guys. I apologise in advance if it seems a little loose. The chapter ran away from me while I was trying to get used to writing this again, and I swear half of what I've written I had never planned on writing at first.

Still, I hope you guys will enjoy this as much as the previous chapters.

Pairings: Potential Hadria (FemHarry) x Tom Riddle, but more platonic than romantic, other pairings undecided. See A/N at the end of the chapter.

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

Beta: The lovely and wonderful LokidottirBlack who edited this in one day, with less than one day of prior warning, just so that I could post this for the New Year. Mistakes are mine.

Chapter Sixteen: Hogwarts: A Discovery

"Omnium Rerum Principia Parva Sunt." The beginnings of all things are small. - Marcus Tullius Cicero

When Hadria returned to Hogwarts on New Year's Day, the first thing she did was to corner the Weasley twins. As it happened, she had been too eager to find them that she threw away everything else that should have been on her mind. So, the Slytherins returned to their Common Room, and Draco had to explain to Severus Snape that their resident demon had disappeared into thin air on their way to the Slytherin dungeon.

"She stopped walking suddenly, as if struck by something," said Pansy, describing in detail what happened, as per their Head-of-House's orders. "I was right behind her, and nearly walked into her. I say nearly, because that was when she ceased to exist."

"Don't say 'cease to exist'," Draco was aghast. "You make it sound like she died."

Blaise sighed loudly, then gave his blonde friend a heavy pat on the shoulder. "I don't know how to break this to you, but she's been dead for more than a month now."

Theodore Nott, who was passing by, looked at Draco's bloodless face and found it comical, so he casually threw out a, "She's finally moved on then? Must be nice, sounds like she felt content after accompanying you guys to school one last time."

Meanwhile, Professor Snape was wondering if the Potter-itis was infectious. He didn't seem to recall his young Snakes being this nonsensical when they had first come to Hogwarts.

On the other side of the school, up in the Gryffindor tower, the twins were staring at the girl who had just stormed into their dormitory like the force of nature she was. It was very dramatic. It involved green eyes that seemed to shine in the dark, wild hair that flared out around her like a halo of black flames, and a billowing cape that was even more impressive than Snape's, if only because this one was so dark it seemed to suck the light from its surroundings. The room wasn't even brightly lit, as the twins had gone up early to quickly unpack the things, they did not want their housemates to see—yet.

"If we were of fainter heart—" George began.

"Swoon, then," Hadria cut in, hands swept open wide. "I'll catch you."

Fred coughed. "You're tiny. You're like, two heads shorter than us."

"So?"

"If we ever need to swoon, you have to promise us that when you carry us—"

"—You must do it elegantly. Handsomely. Can you do that?"

Hadria nodded very seriously. "I could. But I have only two arms, so only one of you are allowed to swoon at any one time."

The twins had identical grave expressions when they nodded in return. "It's a deal."

Then there were a few seconds of silence as none of them wanted to break the atmosphere, before Fred snorted, and then all of them were grinning.

"So, what brings you here?" Fred asked.

"For that matter, how did you get here?" added George.

"We know all the hidden passageways in this school, you know."

"And there isn't one connected to the Gryffindor tower."

Hadria blinked owlishly at them. Then she turned behind her and saw nothing but a blank wall. She too, knew the hidden passageways of the school like the back of her hand, having spent hours staring at the Marauders Map in her previous life. It was also only then that it occurred to her that she had left her Slytherin friends quite abruptly.

"I'm not actually sure how I got here," she said. She patted the wall, but it was as solid as a wall should be. "I couldn't have Apparated either, since that's not possible in Hogwarts."

"Perhaps it's password-activated," suggested George. "What did you say before you arrived here?"

Hadria cocked her head to one side, thinking back to when she recalled that she was supposed to find the twins about the Mirror.

At the time, she had originally been preoccupied with stuffing Snag back into the care of Draco. Then Pansy had lamented about how she had always wanted to keep a Siberian cat, but her parents had disagreed on account of all the fur, never mind that they could use magic to deal with it. The word 'desire' was what triggered her memory about the Mirror and the twins, and the word that slipped out when she had that recollection was...

(Twins…?)

"What was that?"

Hadria looked at Fred, who had spoken. Then at George, who also looked confused.

"I said…" Trailing off, she suddenly realized the mistake she had made. "Ah… That was… um… Russian?"

Judging by the looks on their faces, neither twin bought it.

Fred looked at George and George looked at Fred. Then Fred said, "You speak Russian?"

"Gerwald taught me many languages as we travelled," she said. This was a truth. However, rather than saying that she spoke Russian, it would be more accurate to say that she knew how to ask for and receive directions in Russian—"In case you get lost," Gerwald had said—and everything else was just gibberish. Her German was only slightly better.

"That didn't sound Russian though," George pointed out. There was a spark in his eyes that instantly put Hadria on guard. "Hey Fred, don't you think it sounded more like—"

"—Snake, perhaps?" Fred finished with a too-wide grin that Hadria realized was downright creepy when it wasn't on her own face.

Then she had a revelation. "This isn't news to you."

Fred nodded, looking very smug. "If you're referring to your ability to speak Parseltongue, then yes, it isn't news to us."

"We heard Peeves singing about it one day. Then the Bloody Baron forbade him from continuing," George explained, taking pity on their little Slytherin.

Hadria groaned. She wouldn't be surprised if the poltergeist had caught her cursing in Parseltongue before.

"The Parseltongue may explain the mystery of your transportation," George commented, looking at his arm which was now halfway in the wall.

"Sounds like something Mr. Slytherin might have created to visit Mr. Gryffindor on the sly, back in the day." Fred waggled his eyebrows, and Hadria coughed at the implication.

"Never mind that now. I actually came here to look for the two of you."

Then, before they could comment and get side-tracked again, she ploughed on to say, "In your letter, you wrote that you've found a special Mirror. Has it been moved yet?"

The Mirror had indeed been moved, just it had been in her previous life. This meant that everything in the forbidden corridor was likely to be in place now. She would have to visit it again, but if things followed the same timeline as before, she would have until her exams to make her visit, so there was no rush.

Hadria also took the opportunity to ask the twins about what they saw in the Mirror. Apparently, they had seen themselves as the owners of an international chain of prank shops. The twinge in her chest was still there as she left the Gryffindor Tower by the 'Scandalous Portal'—as the twins had dubbed it—and arrived back at the same spot she had left.

Well, she'd see their dream come true, if she had any say about it. Then with renewed determination, she strode into the Slytherin common room—

–And was immediately pounced upon by a furious Malfoy.

"You're alive!"

"Well she won't be much longer," Blaise commented dryly from the side, watching as the Girl-Who-Lived obediently let the Malfoy drag her towards them in a choke-hold, looking very much like a realistic doll rather than a living person running out of air.

"Congratulations, you'll receive much praise and possibly a medal from Dumbledore for killing off his Dark-Lady-in-the-making," added Pansy.

"And you'll succeed where the Dark Lord failed, and be rewarded for finishing the job," Blaise continued nonchalantly, strolling right through what should have been a political minefield.

Pansy clapped her hands excitedly. "We could write a book! 101 ways to kill a witch. The worst way would be the Killing Curse, since its Unforgivable as well as 'Unreliable.' Whereas strangling would be at the top of the list, because it should be made common knowledge that the best way to kill a Magical is using Muggle methods."

"Dumbledore did try to kill her by making her fall from the Quidditch spectator stands," Blaise agreed. "Perhaps Hadria would be the Girl-Who-Died if the Dark Lord had just dropped her from the rooftop when she was a babe."

Hadria chose that moment to wave a hand, causing a nearby Hogwarts: A History copy to levitate off the table and slam right into the back of Draco's head. She was released immediately as her friend chose to whimper as he nursed his head rather than continue to deprive her of air.

"There's still accidental magic to account for," she said, refuting Blaise's suggestion of dropping a baby from a height. "A knife through the heart or a gunshot through the head might be better."

Blaise made a strange sound as if he had snickered mid-cough. "A knife might work… knowing your luck, the gun would have exploded in his hands."

"What's a gun?" Pansy asked. Hadria stared at her, then turned to frown at Blaise.

"How do you know what a gun is?"

"His mother's third husband was taken out by one of those things one month after they married," Draco sniffed, still rubbing his head and looking rather wronged. "Apparently he'd offended some Muggle gang, misplaced his wand and got shot before he could Apparate away."

All eyes turned to him and Draco scowled at their various expressions—some of disbelief, some of amusement. "That's what Mother said. I think it was supposed to be a lesson on how dangerous Muggles can be."

"So… What's a gun?" Pansy asked again when it became clear that she was the only one in their little group who didn't know what a gun was.

"It's a hand-held contraption that shoots out metal things called bullets at speeds fast enough to injure a person," said Blaise. "Bam! And you've got hole in your body. Naturally, if this hole is in your head or your heart, chances are, you're gonna die."

"Amazing," Pansy breathed, looking half horrified, half reverent. Draco shuddered.

Hadria chose not to comment, though she felt that no one should ever give Pansy a gun.

"What did I miss anyway, that made Draco so… emotional about my continued existence?"

Her friends then filled her in the stories she had missed. The Slytherins seemed to have no lack in creativity when it came to inventing all sorts of theories on her death and post-mortem presence, followed by theories on the disappearance of her 'ghost'. A lot of these theories relied on the assumption that her spirit was solid and in full-colour, unlike ordinary ghosts which were incorporeal, translucent, and silvery. As to why her spirit was unlike ordinary ghosts? Well, it was simply because she was not any other spirit, but the spirit of the Girl-Who-Lived and was therefore special.

"You guys should start a magazine," Hadria laughed, suddenly thinking about The Quibbler. "Fill it up with Hogwarts-related articles that may or may not be true. Conspiracy theories. Absurd 'facts' and stories. Call it Hogwarts' Hogwash or something."

"That is a brilliant idea. How about… Hogwarts: A Mystery, and we could have it in the form of a weekly guide to survival in Hogwarts," Blaise suggested.

Pansy blinked, then stood up abruptly and moved so fast, she appeared to have Apparated, appearing beside Gemma Farley and her friends, startling them. A quick conversation later, she returned to Hadria and the others.

"It's done," she proudly declared. "All we need now is Professor Snape's permission and we can get started. Farley will help us coordinate with the other prefects for the initial distribution of the magazine, since we should have a free limited-edition trial. I think each of us can contact a publisher and see which one can give us the best deal."

That was fast, thought Hadria, surprised that they were actually going to do this. Then she wondered if she could persuade them to let people from other Houses join in, because she knew it would be a blast if Luna could join them next year.

Draco evidently did not find this development unexpected. Either that or he had gotten somewhat used to unexpected developments.

"I don't see why we need to contact several publishers for a good deal like a bunch of plebeians," he commented, expression dripping with contempt. "It shouldn't be hard to make them beg us to let them publish for us."

"Are you going to wave your father's name again?" Blaise asked, a thread of something that sounded like irritation or exasperation in his voice, though his expression was still mild and amiable.

Hadria kept quiet, having a bad feeling about the direction of this conversation. Sure enough, Draco scoffed.

"Well, I'd never thought I'd ever say this, but… Why use my father's name when we've got Hadria Potter?"

Professor Snape agreed to letting them start their own school magazine, and just as Draco had predicted, it was very easy getting a publisher to work with them at a price that Hadria suspected might be a loss for the poor publishing team.

"It's an investment," said Draco when she mentioned it.

As for the content in the magazine, the four of them filled up a several pages worth of what Hadria termed as Girl-Who-Died-theories.

There was also a short article that introduced Halloween at Hogwarts for that year, followed by few more detailed articles about the various happenings of Halloween about the Troll in the Dungeons, the Schrödinger's Boggart, the alleged Grim-sightings, the Terror Trio (the name that some students had given to Hadria and the Weasley twins), and the Treat or Trickery.

They also added a few pages listing down the different pranks that had emerged in the school in the past, revealing tips and facts that would probably have been very useful to the students back when the pranks were active. That was the whole point though—Pansy thought it was hilarious to show others all the things they could have done to avoid the worst of the pranks after they had already been pranked.

"We should start on the next issue too," she said, when they had finished compiling the first magazine. It had only taken them a few days to do so, with the input and interviews of a few other Slytherins, as well as Hermione, Neville, and the Weasley twins.

However, it was then that the four of them realized they did not know what they could include for the next issue.

"It's a good thing we decided to make it a monthly print rather than a weekly one," said Blaise.

Then, it turned out that they had forgotten that the reason why they thought of doing such a magazine in the first place—and that was the craziness that was life at Hogwarts with a Potter.

"A dragon. A bloody dragon!" Draco hissed, shaking Hadria in agitation. His recent behavior suggested that extended periods in close proximity with her was not good for his heart.

"Actually, it's a dragon egg," Blaise piped up, completely unhelpful and proud of it.

"You can't tell your father," said Hadria, whose most pressing concern is Hagrid's possible expulsion.

"The fool will burn his own miserable hut down!"

"You still can't tell your father."

"How did that idiot get his hands on a Class A Non-Tradeable Material?!"

"You really can't tell—"

"Potter, for the safety of himself and those around him—"

"But—"

"Draco," Pansy said loudly, interrupting their non-communication. "There's going to be a dragon-hatching event in a few days' time. Tell me, are you going to let go of the opportunity to witness a dragon hatching?"

Hadria watched as her friend finally fell silent, his expression somewhat constipated. She saved this little titbit into her mental folder of Things Draco Likes.

"I won't allow you to tell your father about it after the dragon-hatching event either," she said, feeling the need to be really clear on this subject. Back in her previous life, Hagrid had only been subjected to Ministry questioning and legal action in her second and third year. She had no intention of letting those events happen again, let alone have a similar event occur in first year.

At that moment, Draco looked like he was very close to hexing her, but it was decided that they would confront Hagrid—for they had yet to do so, as the discovery of the dragon egg had actually been done on the sly—then ask him to let them watch the dragon hatching, and arrange to smuggle the dragon out of the school before any of them can get caught for being partners-in-crime with Hagrid, even though none of them had anything to do with the acquisition of the egg.

Naturally, it did not occur to any of the Slytherins (with the exception of Hadria) to inform a Responsible Adult about this matter, because anyone who was not Professor Snape could be in league with Dumbledore the Headmaster Who Wants to Kill Hadria, and Professor Snape himself would likely have the egg brought to Romania before any of them could catch another glimpse of it.

Of course, this also meant that they could get caught, since they were going to do this without the permission of anyone with higher authority, and Hadria desperately hoped, for Hagrid's sake, that none of them would get caught. She didn't recall other-Draco ever doing anything in the other timeline, aside from getting she and her friends in trouble for breaking curfew, but she didn't want to risk it.

A few days later, the four of them were ready to set off to Hagrid's hut to see a live dragon hatching. Then, on the way, they met not only Hermione and Neville, but the Weasley twins as well.

"I invited them," said Hadria with faux-innocence. "And I assure you they can be trusted."

Draco stared at her, then at the extra four people—trusting none of them at all. However, it could not be denied that not one of the four were likely to do anything that would get their dear friend Hadria, and by extension, the rest of them, in trouble. He turned back to her.

"Potter," he began, the way he always did when he thought the Killing Curse must have addled her brains when she was a baby. "Potter, do you recall how small that hut is? Because I do, and it's not going to fit one half-giant, a stinking dog, four children and two teenagers. And even if we could all fit in, one of us is going to catch fire because we're hatching a dragon."

Then they overheard one twin mock-whisper to the other, "Never knew just how entertaining a Malfoy could be."

"It's no wonder Hadria's such good friends with him," said the other twin.

Blaise coughed to hide a laugh.

That's all for now! So it's a little short, and I had originally planned on including the whole dragon thing in this chapter but I later decided to include it into the next chapter instead.

Chapter progress can be found on my profile as usual. I am still on tumblr (nevertickleasleepinghydra) despite the whole uh tumblr culling fiasco that has been happening the past month, so you can find me there when I'm dead here.

Anyway, I wish you all a very Happy New Year, may all your new year resolutions succeed, and I also wish you all safety, health and peace for the rest of the year!

ABOUT GELLERT-PAIRINGS: (Based on reviewers' input)

Current popular choices: (male) Sirius Black, Nobody (i.e. no romance for Gellert please!)

Runner-ups: (female) Lady Zabini, Amelia Bones, (male) Severus Snape

Other suggestions:

(female) Poppy Pomfrey, Tonks (?), Rosmerta, Ollivander's daughter/apprentice

(male) Remus Lupin, Mad-Eye Moody

No longer considering: Bellatrix (because of Neville), Luna (she's younger than Hadria)

Definitely not considering: Hadria (If you want to see a Hadria/Gellert fic, wait for it. Wait a very long time for it, because I don't have the time right now but some day, it might happen. Who knows?)