Summary:

Well, what about him?


"Ethel Hollow. What a beauty. What a sweet, innocent young marvel. She really is the prize of the school. Our precious angel. We must continue to guard her with our lives. Keep her safe and pure from the wiles of evil men and ... other creatures. Oh, Ethel!"

Harry had rarely been so embarrassed in her life, and for once, she wasn't even laying it on so thick to get laid. A spell she'd cast earlier notified her that Ethel Hollow had followed her to the corridor where the troll's current home was located, and was lurking just around the corner. Harry had made a point of acting as suspiciously as possible, including being uncharacteristically nice to the utter prat. A surreptitious glance into a compact mirror Hermione had given her showed Ethel was blushing and looking even more confused than usual, and far less confident. Excellent.

She'd realized that it was no good plunging into the troll's lair like a simpleton. She was almost one, but somehow, Hermione must be rubbing off on her. It must be all the "S Training." At that thought, she couldn't help but smile. Harry was being schooled by a school girl in what she'd always considered her best subject, and all she could do was beg for more. She noticed Ethel's face in the mirror turning even redder. I wonder what kind of look I had on my face just then, she thought, and laughed.

At any rate, the only way to get the troll out was to use one of the girls as bait. And when you considered who the most disposable girl at Madame Cackle's was ...

Just then, she heard the door open. It was showtime. Either she'd capture the troll or she'd lose her bait. One extremely beautiful girl back in California had had a fishing fixation, and the first thing Harry had learned from her was that you didn't always haul them in on the first cast.

It was a good attitude to have, it turned out, because, almost negligently, the troll whirled around and deflected Harry's spell off the wall and onto the unsuspecting Ethel. He then followed up with the same binding spell Harry had cast, driving her to the ground, helpless. Without even bothering to comment, the troll smirked and turned to gather up his prize.

Suddenly, Harry saw a flash of brown, bushy hair. Hermione was squaring off against Torok! If Harry could move, she'd have buried her head in her hands. But this was a new Harry, and not just because of the new equipment. Jeanette and Eunice St. Clair had taught Harry simple nature magics she could do simply by moving her eyes and thinking the spells. She'd already gotten a spell started to channel the dampness in the hallway into a puddle, but the appearance of her main girlfriend added urgency and power to it. Amazingly, Torok actually slipped on the sudden puddle before his spell could land on Hermione, who cast a binding spell of her own with one hand, and brought out a sap with the other. She was just bringing the blackjack down, and Harry was starting to sigh with relief, when Hermione toppled forward, struck in the back with a knockout spell. The mega-bitch Ethel Hollow had gotten loose and screwed things up for everyone else yet again.

For a moment, Hollow looked embarrassed. Then she lifted her head and declared that she had planned that "to get the less competent witch out of the way." Unfortunately, the time she took to massage her ego gave the troll time to undo Hermione's spell and freeze Ethel again. There are still a lot of ways this could go right, Harry prayed. But nobody was listening. The troll ignored Harry and Ethel, swept Hermione up in its ugly arms, and popped back into the room, laughing its evil troll laugh that was Harry's least favorite sound on Earth. Helpless, Harry glared at Ethel. Undaunted, and incapable of self-reflection, she glared back.


The one person Harry thought she could count on in her new quest for vengeance turned out to be a dud. Mildred made soothing noises and rubbed little circles on Harry's back, but such signs of progress in terms of physical affection were obliterated when she refused to help Harry drive Ethel from the school.

"I realize it isn't what common sense or even sanity would recommend, Harry, but it turns out that the worse Ethel behaves, the more we have to defuse her by making friends," Mildred explained. "The farther she falls, the more heroine virtue you get for redeeming her. My advice is to be extra nice to Ethel and focus on gettting Hermione back. It wouldn't be heroinely for me to point out that with her under glass, I'm probably going to be your main - what is it Americans say - squeeze now, so I won't do that. In fact, I'll help you with rescuing your tomboy girlfriend. But you have to promise me to give up this unheroic vengeance idea and be nice."

"Nice? To that bitch? It'll be a cold day in hell ..." Maude unhelpfully pointed out that the real Hel was, in fact, always having a cold day. Her mother had written a treatise, in fact, that ... Harry silenced her with a glare.

"Of course you have to be nice to Ethel - she's only rude, demanding, insulting and insufferable because she's insecure and feels inferior to her older sibling! Goddess knows I'd love to hex her socks off and cut her dead, but our hands are tied, here," Mildred continued, with her trademark sweet smile.

Maude piped up, then. "I'm afraid she's right. In a situation like this you have to forgive the insecure witch or wizard endlessly and, moreover …"

With that, a first year who looked a lot like Esmerelda and Ethel popped her head up and waved, shyly.

"… sleep with their little sister who has a hero-worshipping crush on you," Maude continued.

Well, she thought. The rules Mildred kept coming up with were implausible even to someone like Harry, who hated having to think about anything very seriously. How Mildred had gotten one of the smartest witches in the whole school to go along was anyone's guess. But it was, also, at the end of the day, Maude's problem. And taking another look at …

The girl realized the question Harry was going to ask, and quietly said "Sybil Hollow, Miss Potter … um …. at your service," then curtsied cutely.

"Yes," said Harry, deciding she liked what she saw, "Yes, I think you will be."

She actually resumed her train of thought — Hermione was definitely rubbing off on her — again, unsurprising, considering how often they'd — okay, what was that thought again. She felt a small hand slip itself into hers. She looked over at Sybil, who blushed, but still smiled… Mildred's rules were incomprehensible, but they weren't always all bad. Or even half bad.