Chapter 17 - A spark of fear

Her second encounter with Warrington had helped to reignite the rumors surrounding her, especially since there had been other witnesses this time. The looks had remained, but the jibes and jinxes had lessened, at least for the moment. Iris had utilized the welcome break to keep working on her light magic. There was one new trick she had figured out accidentally.

She had been trying everything she could to attempt to make her beam split and bend at different angles in her prism, so far without any success. However, during one desperate attempt, she had reached forward with her second hand, in order to try and manually split the beam, even if that wasn't how it was supposed to work, and somehow, she had achieved something entirely different. As the light reached past her fingers, it had bent, missing the prism entirely. At first, Iris sighed in resignation, but then she realized what had actually happened, and got curious.

Iris tried to replicate what she just did, and after a few tries it worked. A beam of red light was coming out of her wand, passing her other hand and bending to the side, missing the prism and hitting the wall. When she focused, she could even change the angle. This wasn't exactly what she needed, but it did seem like a neat trick nonetheless. As she looked closer, she realized it wasn't just the beam that was bending. The light around her hand seemed strangely distorted, like looking through a lens. Did this trick work with regular light too?

A few tests showed that indeed, it did. However, bending all light looked a lot more trippy than just doing it with her red beam. It felt different, too. When she tried to bend her red light, it felt kind of tingly, also it was a bit harder. But if she just tried to bend all the other light, she felt pretty much nothing at all.

Just how useful was this trick, really? Bending her magic light like that seemed pretty useless, since she could have just cast it there in the first place, and it didn't help at all with her issue of colors. And bending other light? Well, she supposed, if she squinted, she could use that trick to look around corners? Didn't seem very useful to her. But if it could help her get better control of her magic, she supposed she should practice it anyway.

~V~

Harry was pacing up and down the trunk of the large oak tree by the lake. Where was she? It wasn't like her to be late. He checked his pocket watch again. Oh, right, she wasn't late. Yet. He watched the second hand tick closer and closer to twelve. He glanced up and stared out across the shore—nothing. Just as the hand was about to strike twelve, he felt something impact his back. "Wha-?"

Harry whirled around, only to be faced with the grinning visage of his sister. Where on earth had she come from? He glanced up and behind her, only to see a suspiciously large and deep patch of shadows underneath the tree behind her, that seemed to be slowly shrinking. He looked back down at the girl who returned his gaze with a sheepish smile.

"Why on earth would you go through that... that place... to get here?" he asked, baffled.

Her grin widened again, and responded simply, "Practice."

The nonchalance with which she was talking about that hellscape of shadows took him aback.

"You shouldn't do that! That's dangerous!"

Predictably, her cheeks puffed up in indignation. "It isn't! Look, I'm fine!"

Harry did look, and she appeared to be her usual mischievous self. So that was something, he guessed. Still.

"Something happened to Hermione when she was stuck in there. She won't talk about it, but I know it. I bet it's the reason why she isn't comfortable with hanging around you."

Iris shifted from one foot to another and turned her eyes to the side, but didn't answer.

"Just promise me you'll be careful?"

"I'm always careful!"

Harry didn't even dignify that with a reply, he just sent her a look.

"Fine, fine, I promise."

Harry sighed. He supposed that was the best he was going to get.

"Why did you want to meet anyway? Not that I'm not happy to see you, but you sounded pretty shifty..."

He supposed he would have to talk about it sooner or later. Fine.

"I met with Hagrid for tea yesterday. He says you're welcome to stop by anytime as well, by the way. And well..." Harry paused.

Iris raised an eyebrow in expectation.

"...Somehow the third-floor corridor came up."

Her second eyebrow joined her first. Harry swallowed, and continued.

"So apparently, that Cerberus is called Fluffy."

Iris blinked. Harry couldn't help but smirk. Finally, he was the one making her speechless for once.

"Say what now?"

Harry grinned. "Hagrid says he got it from a travelling merchant. Also, he kinda let slip that whatever it is guarding—which apparently yes, it is—has to do with Dumbledore and some guy called Nicolas Flamel."

Harry wasn't sure he liked the expression that had come onto Iris' face.

"You wouldn't happen to know who that is?" he asked.

Iris frowned. "Uh... I'm not sure. Something about the name sounds familiar, but that was a book from back home, and I think it was from France? So I guess that can't be it."

Harry guessed that would have been too much to hope for.

~V~

Of course, her short reprieve wasn't meant to last. While it seemed like the Slytherins did indeed respect Snape's rules, in so far that they wouldn't openly cast any spells at her, that didn't apply to sneak-attacks where she couldn't even make out the attacker. Also, they had taken to ganging up in the hallway to their dorm again after a few weeks. Luckily, they couldn't get into their dorm. Instead, her housemates stuck to either throwing insults, or throwing spells when they weren't looking. Iris kind of had started to wish that they'd just go and attack her already, at least then she'd get a chance to try and fight back. Sadly, however, they seemed to know that all too well, and were very careful to not do anything that could draw Snape's ire. This also left Iris without many other options. So, in the end, she once again had to get creative.

She had a plan. A plan that if everything went right would ensure the Slytherins wouldn't bother her or Tracey again, at least for a long while. But first, she needed to prepare. She had a very specific idea, which sounded farfetched but feasible, but it required one more thing before she could put her plan into action. She knew exactly where it was, and even had an idea on how to get there. Iris had never tried something like this before, but she felt confident that it should work.

Checking once again that Tracey was truly asleep, she carefully left her bed, grabbed her wand, and then opened the shadows. In the complete darkness of their bedroom, it felt all too easy. One step, and she was elsewhere.

Gazing through the numerous rifts showing all the impossible shapes of their common room, she made her way past it without looking too closely. Even looking from this incomprehensible dimension, the common room seemed like something truly alien. Past the entrance she found several rifts which indicated a corridor, which she had found led directly to where she needed to go. Apparently, this was how Snape kept showing up in their common room at the most inopportune times. She took a few more steps and found herself in a small room. Through the gaps, she could see the familiar neat office of their head of house. Without spending too much time and risking her shadow being discovered, she slipped out the main door, through the Potions classroom, and into the locked ingredients storeroom.

Finally, she opened the shadows again and stepped out. Bracing herself, she looked around for any signs of a trap or an alarm. The only thing she heard was the soft dripping of a small round beaker at the end of the room next to the door, which contained bright green liquid and seemed to drip fluid into a tube that looped around and fed it right back into itself. For what purpose, or even how, she could not imagine.

Looking around the room, she quickly zeroed in on her target. It was all the way on the top of the shelf. Great.

Hesitantly, Iris reached for the first shelf, and gently put her weight onto it. She bounced slightly, testing if it would hold. The wooden construct let out a groan, but it was playing along for now. Iris swallowed and stepped onto the second shelf. Just why did she have to be so damn short? Although she supposed, the shelf might not even have held her if she was any bigger, but still.

Stepping onto the third shelf caused it to wobble. Iris watched wide-eyed as boxes and boxes of ingredients shifted around on the shelf as she put her weight onto it, hoping none of them would fall off. Finally, she managed to pull herself to the fourth shelf, and at last she could reach the bag. Tugging at it—it was a lot heavier than she expected—she managed to pull it off the shelf and was dragged to the ground with it. Iris groaned, and got back to her feet. Luckily, it looked like she had managed not to spill anything, which all in all, was a minor miracle.

Finally, the last hurdle. She was banking on being able to take this through the shadows with her, but there was a slight issue. She remembered all too vividly not being able to touch Tracey while in there. Although, she also hadn't lost either her clothes or her wand. That's why she had tried travelling with her bag on her back, which had worked. She couldn't reach it while in the shadow realm, but it had stayed where it was supposed to. Heaving up the heavy sack, she placed it in her bag, and slung it back over her shoulders. Hopefully, there wasn't a weight limit to this.

Taking a final breath, Iris drew on the shadows again and vanished from the room.

~V~

A new day arrived, and Iris was ready. She had barely slept a wink, her mind still running through her plan. Today would be the perfect day. It was a Sunday, and they didn't have anywhere to be, so she could ensure Tracey was safely in their dorm when she made her move. It also meant that she would hopefully have quite a big audience. She had spent half the night meticulously preparing everything, and practicing a bit more until she felt confident enough. She had asked Tracey for help with her history assignment, and had even thrown in a book on the history of muggle-wizard wars she had liberated from the restricted section as a bonus, which would all but ensure the girl was occupied with either the assignment or the book until late into the night.

She had excused herself, claiming she was meeting with Harry again, which Tracey had accepted with barely a grunt, too deeply submerged in her new book. There were students in the corridor, of course. Not enough, though. So, ignoring their remarks, and ducking a stray jinx, she made her way down the corridor and out into the rest of the castle. Her last precaution was to ensure Snape would be otherwise occupied. Even if she wasn't technically going to be breaking any of his rules, she didn't want to risk him stumbling onto the situation again and perhaps coming to the wrong conclusion. Or worse, figuring out how she did what she was planning, or more damningly, where she had gotten it from. After she was done, there wouldn't be any evidence left anyway.

Tonight, Harry was set to have detention with Snape. While she didn't expect him to pass up the opportunity to further belittle Harry, she wanted to make absolutely sure. So she waited, camping out in the restricted section, and practicing her magic, until the sun had finally set. It was showtime. She slipped into the shadows and made her way to the dungeons. First, she checked on Snape's office from as much distance as she could manage. Through one of the gaps, she spotted his familiar dour face hovering over Harry's shoulder. Perfect.

She made her way back to the Slytherin dorms, only to see Draco hanging out with Vince and Greg in the corridor leading towards their dorm. Turning, she even spotted Warrington lurking further down in an alcove. She couldn't have planned this any better if she tried.

Going over her plan once again in her head, Iris went over the most important points. She wasn't going to cast any spells, and she wasn't going to get anyone injured. That way, she wouldn't violate any of Snape's rules. Also, she really didn't like the idea of actually hurting someone. If her housemates got scared regardless, well, that sounded like their problem. Now the only remaining issue was to sell the bluff. She had even practiced in front of a mirror, feeling appropriately silly all the while. Iris would have blushed at the memory, were she capable of it in her current form.

She took a step back into the maze that was her common room, and selected an appropriately shady corridor to exit the shadow realm. Soon, students spotted her. She noticed how some of them started discreetly following her. Iris hesitated. Did they know? Or rather, just what was she walking into? Did her housemates have something planned as well? She hadn't expected to have that big of an audience. Well, she would just have to give it her all, it was too late to turn back now, anyway. She steeled her resolve, and then promptly assumed a much more subdued posture. It wouldn't do to give them the wrong first impression. Pride came before the fall, and all that.

Climbing the final steps, she finally got her first real look into the corridor. The one and only ceiling window painted the ground in front of her in pale moonlight, which made the rest of the torchlit corridor appear all the darker by comparison. She could make out silhouettes, along the walls, in the hallway, leaning against the statues. A lot more than she had bargained for. Just what was she getting herself into?

She stepped through the light and her eyes adjusted to the darkness of the corridor. There had to be at least a dozen of them.

"Finally decided to show your face, Potter? I almost thought they had actually re-sorted you into Gryffindor."

Iris glared back at Draco. He had been trying his very best over the last weeks to destroy whatever sympathies she had left for him. He swaggered towards her, both Vince and Greg hanging back and smirking at her.

"But I guess they didn't want to deal with another Squib, seeing how they already have Longbottom..."

That drew some chuckles from the onlookers. Iris ground her teeth. While he didn't seem nearly as skilled or as dangerous as Warrington, Draco had this unique ability to get under her skin.

"Speaking of your friends, where's Davis?" Draco said with a smirk and came to a stop five steps in front of her.

"Finally gotten tired of bonding over how it was growing up with a Mudblood for a mother?"

There were some sharp intakes around the corridor. Probably not that they didn't agree with the sentiment, but seeing how Draco had just blatantly violated Snape's rules, not to mention the Truce, he was now on his own. Iris was half a step from throwing all caution in the wind herself.

He gasped, as if just realizing something. "Oh, wait, I guess you can't..."

That was it. She had been planning on dealing with Draco like everyone else, but now, she was going to humiliate him. She stared Draco down motionlessly, pinning him under her gaze, and for the first time, he seemed to hesitate.

Iris flexed her fingers, and took half a step forward. Draco's eyes widened, and then he gave a smile.

"Aw, did I hit a nerve? What are you going to do, curse me? Or... Oh, right..."

She wasn't sure if he was just mocking her, or trying to bait her into casting a spell at him, but she wasn't going to give him what he wanted either way. This whole plan relied on her not even drawing her wand. But she'd have to be really careful not to actually injure him, as he had done an excellent job of making her not give a damn anymore.

"You've done it now, Malfoy," she almost whispered.

She slowly raised her right hand, opened her palm, and called her iridescent light for all to see. There were some gasps, but the students who had seen her do a similar thing in class just looked at it warily. It was probably the fact she was doing it wandlessly that had him on edge. Her light drenched them in color, and painted half the corridor with wandering specks of rainbows. Of course, that was all it could do, and soon, even they would realize that.

And that's why she'd need the second part of her plan. Her light was both a distraction, as well as the core of the biggest bluff she had ever attempted, hopefully big enough that it would give her a more than temporary break from the rest of her housemates. Although now, with Draco, it was different. She didn't want to scare him; she wanted to humiliate him. That's why she'd need to start small.

With her glowing multi-colored light held in front of her, she subtly shifted her left hand backwards, towards the ray of moonlight behind her, reached for just a tiny strand, and tugged.

A thin line of bright blue flame lit up on the floor in front of her and raced towards Draco. His eyes widened and he leapt to the side with a yelp, avoiding the encroaching line of fire by an inch. She smirked and adjusted her grip, causing the line of fire to bend and veer towards him yet again. He tried to scramble to his feet, but was too slow, and so he was forced to throw himself to the ground again to evade the blue flame.

The line of fire was fading fast after it's initial burn. It was looking more and more like a snake made entirely of fire, sliding along the ground, on the hunt for Draco. Said boy didn't waste time to scurry as far away from it as he could. Not that it helped much, the fire easily kept pace. In an act of desperation, he climbed onto the nearby stone statue, which just so happened to be a snake as well. The line of fire started circling and coiling around in front of the statue.

"Don't just stand there, do something!" yelled Draco.

His housemates, however, seemed to have other ideas. Nobody had made a move, even Vince and Greg were standing, rooted to the spot, unsure what to do. It seemed that Draco's blunder had put him firmly on the wrong side of the Truce, and nobody wanted to risk Snape's ire in order to help him.

His eyes were flitting from figure to figure, until they finally came to rest on Iris, who was smirking back at him. She was definitely enjoying this more than she should.

But she wasn't done. "Watch your head," she said and gestured her own head at the thing behind him.

His eyes widened, and he turned and looked the other way, and then up. The large serpentine statue had its mouth open, and its eyes started burning blue. With a terrified scream, he tossed himself off the statue, to the ground. He watched in shock as only a second later, a column of blue fire erupted from the snake's mouth, incinerating the very spot he had just vacated.

This turned out to be too much for Draco, as he scrambled to his feet and took off in a terrified sprint towards the entrance she had just come from. As he ran past her, she turned and said for everyone to hear, "Hey now, don't go getting cold feet!"

With that, she grabbed the light and twisted it around, igniting the traces of moonstone powder that had stuck to his shoes. She couldn't suppress a giggle as his shoes caught fire and he let out a panicked scream as he redoubled his speed, leaving a trail of blue flames down the corridor. She figured he'd be fine, shoes from Madam Malkin's were spelled fireproof after all.

Iris took another breath as she finished her unplanned detour, and turned back to the matter at hand. She was staring down the room, her right hand still aglow, and the silhouettes stared back. It still seemed like nobody was willing to make a move. She was staring them down unblinkingly, putting her best game face on. Now, came the hard part.

She pulsed her light brightly, and at the same time pulled at the beam of moonlight, spreading it out. A line of fire ignited a few steps from her and grew. The bright blue fire grew bigger and bigger until it was so large, she almost couldn't see past it anymore. Then it started to move. A slow, but unrelenting wall of blue flame started to roll down the corridor at a snail's crawl.

This managed to get some reactions. With everyone trapped on the other side of the wall, and the wall slowly enclosing on the remaining space, students jumped into action. She could see silhouettes moving, running down the corridor, some trying to get away from the fire, others towards it. She could hear a shout, it somewhat sounded like Warrington.

"Finite Incantatem!"

The flames kept burning unperturbed. Iris smirked. Of course, she wasn't using any spells after all. A few more shouts repeated the spell with increasing levels of panic. Then she heard a shout of "Aguamenti!"

She saw steam rise from the flames, but to her relief, they didn't extinguish. That had been lucky. She actually hadn't known that you could just create water like that. Finally, she heard the one thing she had been dreading the most. Some brave soul finally remembered their first defense lesson and cast the flame freezing charm. Well, she had had no way of testing this, but according to the book...

Some more worried shouts and the fact that no students came out the other side confirmed her theory. The flame freezing charm was useless against magical flames. That's why it was so easy. Suddenly, she had a thought. What if whoever had tried the charm had actually stepped into the flames like her?

She didn't think so. While there were some panicked shouts, nobody was sounding as if they were being burned alive... she hoped. But still. Should she stop and check? What if she actually got someone hurt? Even if they jumped into the fire themselves, and it probably wouldn't count as an attack... But still.

Then again, what would she do then? If she stopped now, she couldn't start again. Most of the powder had already been burned up, only the places she hadn't burned yet remained. If she stopped, the whole bluff would collapse in on her. After a moment, Iris firmed her resolve and pressed forward. She'd just have to hope that nobody actually got hurt.

There was a shout, and a red spell shot out of the flames and towards her. It seemed that at least someone had managed to keep their head in all this. Iris, however, had been ready, and had more than enough distance between herself and the caster to easily lean out of the way while keeping her light going.

Finally, as the fire enclosed onto the rear wall, with over a dozen people trapped in between, the shouts seemed to increase from panic to sheer terror. She let them stew for a little while, until there was about two meters of space remaining as far as she could see, and then let go of the moonlight. The flames snuffed out within a second.

Iris tried her best to keep an impassive expression, as the students looked around the corridor, terrified, until most of their gazes fell upon her. They did seem properly scared of her, but she still had to get her message across. And it was hard to do that from all the way across the corridor. She tilted her head slightly, and pulsed her light again.

The two stone gargoyles on the walls next to the students burst into flames, and they scrambled away in the only direction left—towards her.

Statue after statue kept bursting into flames behind them, as they were getting closer and closer to her, spurring them forwards. Finally, just as they were about to reach her, she used the last remaining strip of powder she had left on the ground to create a wall of flame directly in front of her, which caused them to scatter to a halt. Iris cut out the flames, and dimmed her light. She stared at the assorted students, who were gazing back at her like deer caught in the headlights. This was the part she had been practicing in the mirror for. She had better not mess this up.

"Things are going to be different around here..."

She almost sounded to herself like a cartoon villain from TV. Iris stamped down on the giggle that threatened to emerge at that thought, and instead resumed speaking.

"I guess I can't fault you for looking at me and seeing just a silly girl," she said, while she started pacing along the corridor, "Someone who doesn't belong in this house..."

She turned and walked back towards the center.

"But I feel like now, after you had a bit of time to think about it..." she continued slowly, and then let her gaze sweep over them, imitating Professor Snape from his first class. "You might find it worth reconsidering whose good side you want to be on..."

She paused for dramatic effect, "Or rather... whose bad side you don't want to be on."

She failed to hide a smirk as even after that totally ridiculous speech, nobody managed to say a word.

"Let's make one thing perfectly clear. Tracey is off limits. If I see anyone cast any spells at her or get any other bright ideas..."

She trailed off, then suddenly pulsed her iridescent light, causing the assorted Slytherins to jump, even without the use of any fire. Iris grinned.

"I'm glad we understand each other."

She let that statement linger for a bit, but then she couldn't help herself. Iris slowly leaned forward, cupped a hand to her mouth, and whispered,

"This is the part where you run."

When they, in fact, didn't run, she decided to help them along by pulsing her light, and igniting the last stash of powder in the remaining two stone statues next to them. That got them going alright.

As she watched the assortment of terrified, mostly older Slytherins scramble for the exit, she finally couldn't manage to hold in her giggles anymore, which only seemed to make them run faster. As they left, it turned into full blown laughter. Iris grabbed the moonlight for one final time and spread it along the corridor, igniting the last traces of moonstone powder all across the hallway in one final beautiful blaze of blue inferno, which also served to wipe out all the remaining evidence as a bonus.

As the fire finally died down, and with it her laughter, Iris twirled on one foot and skipped back towards her room, only for her eyes to come to rest on the terrified visage of Tracey.

A/N: Chapter art for this chapter if you type this URL without spaces: imgur .com (slash) a (slash) 55tXiQ6

This time there's even two of them, if you scroll down.