NOTE

Warning for self harm scars, mentions of physical and sexual abuse, and a mention of a suicide attempt.


2. forced confessions

"What a shame."

Snape glared at Poppy as she clicked her tongue and pulled down Miss Green's sleeves. He hardly thought the word shame sufficed.

After discovering the girl's scars he had healed her broken bone and put her under a sleeping spell, to preserve her unconscious state until Poppy had seen them too. Now she lay on one of the hospital wing beds, barefoot, breathing silent and slow. Her shoes sat together on the floor.

Poppy's forehead was creased with thoughtfulness. "I might as well check for any other bumps and bruises from the fall." Her deft fingers unbuttoned the first layer of the girl's robes, and then she drew the privacy curtain around the bed. "Just be a moment, Severus."

Snape stared at the curtain, and then began to pace slowly over the flagstone floor.

He did not make it more than two steps before hearing a dismayed gasp from behind the curtain. "Merlin's beard…"

"What?" he snapped.

There was a pause.

"It's worse," came Poppy's voice, rather strained with emotion. "She's bruised, but not from a fall, and… There are more scars here than Greyback left. It looks like she's… harmed herself. During her transformations."

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

Poppy sighed. "I knew she shouldn't have been allowed to go through them on her own, but she insisted, and since she's no longer a minor there was no way–"

"What of the bruises?"

"They're… all over."

Snape's eyes were still closed, his robes as black as the night, shrouding his tall frame. "Describe them."

There was a deep silence, and its meaning was clear.

Oh, Sev, came Lily's voice.

He let out a sharp breath. Back so soon? he thought cynically.

"We need to wake her up," Poppy said. "And ask her for an explanation. Though it's clear she's been… beaten."

It was now obvious that Miss Green's shaking hands had warned of a very serious problem. One which, if he was correct in his assumptions, Snape could regrettably understand.

A moment later, Poppy pulled the privacy curtain aside. Miss Green was again fully dressed, but Snape could not stop himself from imagining the scars and bruises that were hidden by the layers of fabric, and the terrors they spoke of.

Her face still looked as peaceful as it had in the forest. But that peace was temporary, and it ended when Madam Pomfrey raised her wand and cast "Finite Incantatem."

Fay's eyes opened, and she cautiously pushed herself up to a seated position. Her expression was steady and unrevealing, but her eyes moved slowly between the faces of Snape and Poppy, trying to deduce something.

At length, she spoke.

"I fainted."

"Yes," Snape answered.

"I fell out of the tree."

"Indeed."

She blinked. "Am I okay?"

Poppy spoke gently but firmly. "That is a question we need you to answer for us, Miss Green."

Fay's expression remained innocent and blank. "Sorry?"

A depressingly good pretender.

Poppy sighed, and Snape knew that she would take over the difficult task of stating what had been discovered. A small bubble of tension dissolved into relief in his chest. He continued to watch the girl closely.

"Miss Green," Poppy began, her tone both straightforward and sensitive. "You have scars on your forearms. And all over your body. And you've been severely bruised. Recently."

There was nothing but silence from the girl.

Poppy went on. "There's no reason to be ashamed. You will not be punished for this. Certainly not. But I do need you to explain the bruises to us."

The time for lies was over, and Fay knew it. Her eyes were changing now, looking more and more like those of a caged animal. "I fell down the stairs."

"An age-old excuse," Snape said.

His mother had used it on multiple occasions.

"No, really," Fay said. "I've been very clumsy lately."

"Miss Green," Poppy sighed.

There was a long pause, in which the nurse wordlessly pleaded with Fay to admit the truth freely. There was a clear refusal, palpable in the room.

Poppy changed tactics. "What was your situation over the summer?"

"Lived with my mum."

"Was anyone else living with you and your mother?"

Fay's eyes flashed momentarily. She was cornered. "Her husband," she said, her voice trying to be even.

Poppy's eyebrows lowered in concern. "Did your mother's husband harm you?"

"No."

"Tell the truth," Snape interjected. His tone was not particularly harsh, but it was deep and unyielding.

Fay looked away.

"Miss Green," Poppy said. "Did your bruises come from your stepfather?"

The air grew heavy while the girl gathered herself. But it was clear that she was attempting to organise her thoughts, so the silence was allowed to stretch on for an uncomfortable period of time. She was staring at the wall.

"Yes," she said.

A flame of anger was struck to life at the base of Snape's skull. "Why didn't you leave the situation?" he said accusingly.

"I couldn't."

"You're of age. You're free to leave your childhood house."

Her face tensed. "It was complicated."

"Why not stay with a friend?"

"Severus," Poppy said sharply.

Snape ceased his interrogation, but continued staring daggers at the young woman on the bed.

"Miss Green," Poppy said carefully. "What was the extent of this abuse? It was clearly physical. Was it sexual?"

Fay looked at Madam Pomfrey with steady eyes. "No."

Poppy relaxed slightly, but Snape remained rigid. Poppy had heard what she wanted to hear. Snape had heard what was underneath.

"How recently did you acquire your current bruises?" Poppy said. "How frequently did this happen?"

But Miss Green had looked away again, and stared silently at the wall, clearly unwilling to answer any more questions.

Poppy turned to Snape and spoke under her breath. "I'm going to get Minerva. Stay with her." She cast a worried glance at the young woman, and then left the hospital wing, her footsteps echoing off the high stone walls.

Fay's eyes had turned subtly vengeful, and she now narrowed them at her head of house.

"Why did you follow me into the woods?"

"It is fortunate that I did follow you. Otherwise you might have gone on concealing this problem indefinitely."

Anger flashed across her eyes like a burning comet. "I was minding my own business. I was going to come back inside." Something in her tone was so similar to Potter's brand of insolence that Snape felt his temper threatening to break through the surface and attack like a kraken.

Breathe for a moment, Sev. You're not processing any of this.

Snape gritted his teeth. He knew he was in a unique position to relate to the girl's situation, but his thick old walls were preventing him from doing so.

Talk to her, Lily said softly. Sev… tell her.

But he didn't.

How could he? It was impossible to admit that the spell she'd been using was his own. Well, surely she knew that much. But to openly confess that she had, in fact, discovered its original purpose?

No.

That would remain a secret forever.

The girl was staring at him, her eyes surprisingly hard. He'd never been looked at in quite that way. Not since Lily. It made a hidden part of him grow soft.

He began to think of the ways this might have been prevented. Signs he had missed.

Perhaps this new habit of hers had been in the making long before the events of the summer. The war, Greyback, this new… stepfather.

She had always been a quiet student. Not as social as the other girls. Had her self-sufficiency, befitting a Slytherin, festered into isolation and self-loathing over time?

Had Snape noticed her lowering her face a bit too close to her cauldron of Draught of Living Death in sixth year? It had been perfect. It would have been fatal had she so much as touched the tip of her tongue to its pearly surface.

Even more concerning than the scars were the bruises. Snape was glad he had not seen them as Poppy had. But he could imagine them well enough, and found it difficult to avoid doing so.

He looked back at Miss Green's sharp eyes, remembering Poppy's last question, and the answer which, to him, had been obviously false.

"You're a good liar. But not good enough for me."

Fay's eyes grew dark with scorn. "If you used Legilimency–"

"I did not. I would never do such a thing without your express permission. But I do request that you willingly confess the truth once the headmistress arrives. Otherwise it will be my responsibility to do so on your behalf."

"On my behalf?" she repeated, her voice rising. "This is unfair! I didn't confess anything!"

"Yes, you did."

"No, I didn't!"

"Miss Green."

Fay leaned over the side of the bed and retrieved her shoes from the floor. She was silent as she stood up, but her face was pale and twisted in a grimace, betraying the pain she attempted to hide. Her eyes were downcast and burning as she started across the stone floor, barefoot, making for the archway into the corridor.

Snape's hand flew out and closed around her forearm, a flash of deliberate fingers and black fabric. The girl hissed in surprise and looked up at him, her eyes incredibly wide.

Snape knew that look. Oh, he knew it well. Hers were the eyes of a victim, expecting to be struck. Briefly, she had forgotten who he was. Snape felt the sharp echo of her terror in his own chest and let go as swiftly as he'd grabbed her, stepping back.

Then Poppy returned with Minerva, saving him.

The headmistress's eyes were concerned, her mouth drawn in a tight, narrow line. Her shoes made a firm sound on the flagstones and her emerald sleeves fluttered as she came to a stop. "Miss Green," she said, looking at the girl over her spectacles. "I understand you've had quite the difficult summer."

Straight to the point, then. No doubt it was better that way, but Snape pitied the girl. She looked completely trapped. A chill flooded through him, crown to toe, as he imagined how he would have felt had his own scars and bruises been found out during his time in school. His expression was stern and he crossed his arms to block out her pain, black silk swishing softly.

"Yes?" Fay said.

Minerva lowered her chin. "I'm afraid I will have to insist that you give us more information. You may do so verbally or in a written statement. Whichever you prefer."

Miss Green did not speak but her preference was clear. Let's have it over with.

Minerva understood. "Tell us what you feel is most important, from the beginning."

The girl appeared stuck.

"Perhaps more specific questions would be best," Snape said.

The headmistress nodded. Her eyes were not lacking sympathy, but her intention was clear, and she asked her questions quickly, without much emotion. Fay responded in kind.

"When did your mother marry this man?"

"In the middle of May. Two weeks after the battle."

"What's his name?"

"Jonathan Perry."

Minerva furrowed her eyebrows. "A muggle?"

"Yes."

"What was your first impression of him?"

"I was wise to him from the start. Mum thought he was chivalrous. I said he was a chauvinist."

Snape snorted, but neither Minerva nor Poppy seemed to pick up on the clever–if disturbing–wordplay.

"Did your mother ever become 'wise' to him?" Minerva asked.

"In August." Fay's voice was quieter. Not willfully so, but because the air had to be forced through her tightening throat as she teared up. Snape averted his eyes.

"And what caused this change?"

"He started… He hit her."

"And had he been hitting you before that point?"

"...yes."

"And your mother was unaware?"

A pause. "Yes."

"Miss Green, do you think your mother suspected the abuse?"

"I don't know. I didn't tell her."

"And why didn't you?" Minerva's voice was half baffled, half stern.

The girl shrugged her shoulders.

"Miss Green, this is not something to be shrugged off. It is awful what you've endured. You are allowed to behave accordingly."

"And what exactly would accordingly look like?"

The outburst was quiet, but an outburst it was. There was a strained pause. Then Minerva sighed, and continued crisply.

"Why did you remain in the house? Why did your mother not alert the authorities?"

A sardonic smirk twisted Fay's lips–the only option besides tears. "Well, see, Johnny's a first class emotional manipulator." Her eyes deadened slightly. "And my mother is a very vulnerable person."

"Your mother raised you alone, is that correct?" Poppy said. Fay nodded and Minerva looked at the nurse, seeming surprised that she had been unaware of this information herself. "There's no father on her emergency contact list," Poppy explained.

Minerva nodded. "Miss Green… would you mind explaining why you didn't leave the house yourself?"

Fay looked confused by the question. Something had been lost in translation. "It was my responsibility to stay." The others were silent, and she glanced momentarily at Snape before blinking. "I couldn't abandon my mother."

Snape realised his hand had curled into a fist, and he forced it to relax.

"Why did you not tell your mother you were being abused?" Minerva pressed.

Fay was silent. The quality of her silence brought about suspicion in the headmistress; and, by extension, the question Snape had been waiting for.

"Miss Green. What was the exact nature of this abuse?"

Snape watched the young woman closely. Her struggle was firmly concealed behind a cold expression.

Minerva appeared very worried, and her voice had a protective edge to it. "Miss Green, were you abused sexually by your stepfather?"

There was a weakening in Miss Green's neck. In her whole spine. A giving way.

Her voice was disturbingly soft.

"Yes."

"And your mother was unaware of this?"

"She didn't know."

"I find that hard to believe."

"She was distracted."

Neglectful, Snape corrected, silently.

"Clearly the abuse continued up to the end of the summer," Minerva went on. "Poppy says your bruises are relatively new. Forgive me, I cannot understand why your mother did not alert the authorities. For her daughter's sake, if not for her own. She must have noticed the evidence… the bruises?"

"No… he never beat me before Monday."

A deep and primitive disgust coiled in Snape's stomach. Then the abuse, up to that point, had been sexual alone. Invisible. If Miss Green's mother had deliberately chosen to turn a blind eye, to silence her suspicions, it had been all too easy for her to do so.

Minerva looked shocked, and Poppy had pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, her own delusions brought to a bitter end.

"Monday…" Minerva repeated. "The thirty-first of August, the day before yesterday?"

"Yes."

"What prompted him to beat you on Monday?"

A tear rolled down Miss Green's cheek, and she swiped it away brutally. Her mouth began to tremble, and she hid her face as she spoke. Her voice wavered, sounding higher, younger. "I tried to intervene."

Minerva finally abandoned her role of interrogator and instead spoke from a place of personal concern. Her cheeks were slack with worry and her lips seemed thinner than usual. "Miss Green. Do you believe your mother is in danger?"

The girl had begun to shake. "I got an owl from her this morning saying she's okay. But that doesn't really mean anything."

"Do I understand correctly?" Minerva said, in disbelief. "You were sexually abused by your stepfather for the duration of the summer holidays, and your mother was unaware of this? She is unaware of any abuse or violence towards you, other than what took place two days ago? Miss Green. Why would you suffer in silence?"

Fay shrugged her shoulders, and the frailty of the gesture brought on a flood of tears. "I was scared," she said, her voice a mere whimper.

The broken individual her rough exterior had been hiding was now without protection or disguise. Her fury at being exposed in this way was apparent as she cried.

Minerva ceased her questioning entirely, and there was a long pause while Miss Green was offered a handkerchief, and made to sit on the edge of the bed.

"Unfortunately we cannot take action against him," Minerva said, after the girl had had a chance to calm herself. "But I must encourage you to tell the muggle authorities yourself. I can arrange a telephone call. And I would recommend you do it very soon, while the evidence is… fresh."

Miss Green shook her head. Her eyes and nose were red and irritated from crying and rubbing, but the tears had ceased to flow. Again she spoke in a voice which shielded pain with firmness and anger. "The muggle authorities would do fuck all about it."

Say something, Sev, Lily pleaded. But Snape was unable to speak. His throat had turned to stone. Besides, Miss Green was unfortunately correct. It seemed her mother would be hard pressed to admit the abuse to herself, let alone the authorities. And even if she were to do so, the system was not a kind one.

Minerva and Poppy shared a meaningful glance, and then Poppy rested her hand on Miss Green's shoulder. The touch elicited a very faint flinch–which escaped Poppy's notice, but not Snape's.

"We don't have to speak of this any more today," Poppy said, her voice soothing. "Our top priority is your safety, and you are very much safe here at Hogwarts. We do, however, need to speak to you about your transformations, and the toll your lycanthropy took over the summer."

Minerva nodded. "Poppy tells me you developed unhealthy coping mechanisms related to your transformations."

Miss Green looked up, the numbness in her eyes making it clear that she was preparing to lie again. "It's normal to… take it out on yourself. When you can't… hunt."

She spoke as though the words pained her. As though she still was in shock, after three months, that such language was relevant to herself.

"Yes," Minerva said. "But you had access to Wolfsbane Potion, did you not?"

Fay knew she was caught, and her eyes hardened once more.

"You received a monthly supply of Wolfsbane Potion from the Ministry after your registration in May," Poppy said.

"Yes," mumbled Fay.

"You did take the potion, Miss Green…"

"Yes." The young woman's anger was becoming more pronounced.

"So these injuries were self-inflicted? Deliberate?"

"Obviously."

Minerva took a patient pause. "Where did you undergo your transformations? Did your mother offer you any kind of support regarding your condition?"

"My mother didn't know."

The fact was stated so numbly that it took a moment to be truly heard.

"Sorry?" Poppy said, dumbfounded.

"You did not tell your mother about your condition," Snape said evenly. It was a statement rather than a question.

Miss Green shook her head.

Both Minerva and Poppy appeared shocked. But Snape understood all too well how a mother could be so absent as to ignore such a significant change in her child.

Minerva shook her head as though it was full of fog. "But… she did not notice the delivery of the potion?"

"It came straight to me by owl. To my window."

Snape sensed that his dispassionate persona was now required, and silently took over the reins of the interrogation.

"Did you actively conceal your condition from your mother."

"Well I didn't talk to her about it. She might have guessed. If she did, she decided not to say anything, and that was fine by me." Her tone was hard, but Snape sensed a depth of pain beneath it.

"Where did you go for your transformations, Miss Green."

"To the woods north of my town."

"And you were sure not to leave scars where they would have been clearly visible to your mother."

She nodded her head.

"And what about your stepfather."

The question was posed as impassively as the others, but the subtext did not escape Miss Green. How did he fail to notice, if he was regularly seeing you naked.

She looked at the wall and spoke plainly. "It was always dark."

Those four words told a horrific story, and Snape wished he had not asked.

Wished to leave the room.

But he felt it was his duty, now, to stay.

Poppy looked horrified. "Miss Green, I am so sorry. I truly wish you had reached out. Any one of us would have been–"

"I can take care of myself."

The young woman was suddenly and surprisingly hostile. Snape saw something of the wolf emerge at that moment. Teeth bared and chest heaving.

Snape looked away and clasped his hands behind his back, regretting the intrusive thought.

Minerva distanced herself from the girl "I should return to the great hall. Poppy… you might help to ease any physical pain Miss Green might be feeling."

The headmistress gave Snape what was intended to be a significant look, but he was too distracted to understand its meaning. Then she walked out of the hospital wing, her footsteps fading down the corridor.

Poppy looked momentarily lost. Which was quite rare for her. But Snape was certainly not going to be the first one to speak.

"You do have lingering pain?" Poppy said, at length.

Miss Green nodded numbly.

"I will give you something for it, and for the bruises as well."

The nurse walked to the end of the long room, through the wide shafts of midday light that fell through the high windows. She opened a cabinet in the corner and returned with two small vials, handing them one by one to Miss Green, who uncorked and swallowed them without emotion.

Poppy interlaced her fingers in front of her. "It is my opinion that you should have a chaperone. Someone to stay with you throughout your transformations. To help you refrain from harming yourself further." Fay's silence seemed to unnerve her, so she continued, her voice measured. "I have experience with this. I stayed with Remus Lupin through a handful of nights, when he was a very young student. It will not bother me to see you. Would you accept? Please understand, it is for your own safety."

Snape expected an eruption, but Miss Green softened at the mention of Remus Lupin. His posthumously awarded Order of Merlin had done a great deal of good for the "werewolf community." Legislation had been passed to protect those suffering from lycanthropy in the wake of the war, and to make the Wolfsbane Potion freely accessible.

Miss Green's response to Lupin's name was a positive one, if subtle. And after a moment of consideration she nodded her head in agreement with Poppy's suggestion.

"Good," Poppy said, as she took the empty vials. "You may go now. Unless, Severus…"

Snape did not answer, but lingered where he stood. Poppy understood and went into her office, leaving him alone with Miss Green.

She had risen from the bed, and was standing on one foot and then the other as she slipped on her shoes.

Be gentle, Lily murmured.

Snape was not certain what he was going to say before he said it. Fortunately it turned out to be entirely harmless.

"Come to my office at seven o'clock tonight, for your second dose."

Miss Green did not respond with anything more than a vague nod of her head. She crossed through the dust motes hanging in the sunlight, walked through the stone archway, and was gone.

Only then did Snape realise she was the first student to take leave of him with such blatant lack of deference, and escape unscathed by his temper.

Oddly enough, he respected her for it.


Fay fought back tears as she walked down the stairs to the great hall, shaken by the relentless questioning. She wanted to cry in the bathroom, but knew if she went there she would never come out again. She needed a bite to eat before the start of afternoon classes. That would help with her exhaustion and her curdling emotions.

They knew about the scars. All of the scars.

Snape must have spotted the ones on her forearms first, and that had led to the visit to the hospital wing. Thank Merlin he hadn't realised that she'd been using his spell.

Otherwise, she thought, she'd probably be dead.

It had started after her first transformation in June.

She'd been made familiar with the curse, sectumsempra, during the reign of the sadistic Carrow siblings the previous year, when she'd seen it used on Potter's supporters. And in her lowest moment, aching from the deep wounds her claws and her teeth had inflicted, she'd remembered it like a dark prayer.

It had seemed like a simple enough way to go. And if it failed, she would not be found out or punished. It wasn't an unforgivable curse and, being of age, she was now allowed to use magic outside of school.

The attempt had failed. But what she'd discovered was that the curse was easy to control. She could manipulate it very precisely, inflicting thin slashes.

The curse, the pain, had quickly become an outlet. Mostly she resorted to it after the transformations, as a way of distracting herself from the agony in her joints and her heart. She'd slowed down towards the end of the summer. She'd tried to wean herself off of the pain. But it was challenging. She still craved it.

Well, bad luck. Now that she had McGonagall and Snape and Pomfrey on her case, it would be impossible to use the curse again. And Pomfrey's supervision during her transformations would mean no more clawing. No more biting.

No more distraction.

She was ashamed of herself as she pinned down the source of her mounting anxiety. But at least she was strong enough to look it in the face. She was afraid of what would become of her, without the pain. What she would be forced to feel. To remember.

It was bad enough, their knowing about the self harm. But then everything else had come out. She'd tried to resist. To control her tongue. But they'd asked the right questions, and she'd been unable to escape.

She would be approached about it again, she knew. The abuse. But for now the questioning was over. The memories the interrogation had brought up were safely suppressed again, beneath a firmly bolted trapdoor.

The great hall was loud with conversation, and a cacophony of scents assaulted her nose as she stepped through the entryway, melding into one sharp metallic swarm of unpleasantness.

Dennis spotted her immediately and his urgent eyes pulled her closer, like magnets. She picked up her back from the bench beside him and looked at him as though his obvious concern was unwarranted. "Sorry. Took a bit longer than expected."

"Fay."

Again, just like that, her defences were foiled. Why was she so weak today?

She could smell his frustration and she tried to swallow, the roof of her mouth painfully dry.

"I saw Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall leave. It was you, wasn't it?"

Fay felt the muscles of her legs stiffen. "I fell out of my tree. They found… the bruises."

Dennis's face hardened, but his eyes took on that uniquely Gryffindor look. That insufferable shine. That compass of justice.

"Good," he said, sitting up straight. "I've been saying it in my letters all summer. It's good that they know now."

"It wasn't their business."

"I think it was."

She looked at him, sensing his efforts to get closer to her. And it made her shut down.

Dennis had been her sole confidant over the summer. He'd read the whole story in letters. From the initial week of shock and suspicion when Fay had returned home to find her mother engaged to a strange muggle man, to the difficult but inevitable confessions about the abuse. He had asked her multiple times to come and stay with him. She had refused.

She hadn't written a word to him about her being a werewolf. No, not even Dennis, her closest friend since first year, knew about that.

She'd considered telling him in one of her letters. Had written drafts in which she'd told him the whole truth. But she'd burned them all. Never sent.

The secret was a wedge between them, and it was what allowed her to step away now, the sensation in her chest something between frozen numbness and stabbing pain.

Fay willfully ignored the disappointment in Dennis's eyes. "See you in Defence later," she said.

Lucy Malfoy was waving at her from the Slytherin table, her mouth open in confusion and annoyance, and Fay went over. Dennis shook his head and stabbed a slice of beet on the end of his fork. Fay was "Lucy's Puppet," as ever.

Fay let her bag drop to the flagstone floor and sat down heavily on the bench, across from Lucy and next to Sadie Nott. Isobel Blackwood sat beside Lucy, twirling her raven-dark hair, her nose in a textbook.

"I will never understand," Lucy sighed, casting a fault-finding glance at Dennis. She had never approved of Fay's friendship with the Gryffindor boy, but knew by now that it was too strong to be ruined, so it was no longer a point of contention.

Fay put a chicken leg onto her plate and picked at it feebly. Even under the stench of Blaise, Lucy's smell was not very pleasant.

Lucy leaned forward, her long, smooth, blonde hair slipping off her shoulder. "Where were you? My first guess was snogging Creevey, but then I saw him moping over there. Did you finally break up with him?"

"Lucy," Isobel said boredly. "They are not and never were together."

Lucy pouted and eyed Fay's turtleneck. "No wonder you don't have a boyfriend, Green. You dress like a nun. It's fine to be a late bloomer, but honestly. You've got to start attracting boys sometime."

"Turtlenecks can be very sexy," Sadie asserted. "They leave more to the imagination."

"Thank you for your input, Nott, but our Fay doesn't need to leave any more to the imagination than she already does."

"Some of us don't depend on boys to maintain our self esteem," Fay grumbled.

This was a statement she liked to think she lived by. But, at this point, it was just the trauma.

Students began standing up from their tables as the lunch hour came to an end. Fay hadn't eaten any of the chicken leg. Despite her queasiness she snuck a bread roll into her pocket and grabbed a green apple before the food disappeared.

Lucy sighed as she gathered her books. "What have I got next?"

"We're together in Care of Magical Creatures."

"Oh." Lucy cast a dubious glance towards Hagrid, who was standing up from the staff table, laughing at something Flitwick had said. "Let's just hope he doesn't force us to pet something grim."

"I like his class."

Sadie laughed. "Lucy's just traumatised from the Blast-Ended Skrewts in fourth year."

Lucy paled. "Shut up, Nott."

Fay felt eyes on her from across the hall and turned her head to see Dennis watching her. His eyes were dark with betrayal, and he looked away from her quickly before walking out of sight.

The four Slytherin girls parted ways in the entrance hall, and Lucy led the way down the windy hill towards the Forbidden Forest, reciting her complaints about the morning classes.

Fay followed, heavy with melancholy, mouth full of sour green apple.


NOTE

Thank you for reading, and for your favourites and follows. Reviews make me very very happy!