Colors of the Rainbow

by VeilWeaver

Harry's twin sister Iris was left with a far more insidious wound than him that night. With her magic left all but shattered, seemingly as powerless and faltering as a ray of light, even the simplest spells elude her grasp. The discovery of dangerous and forbidden ritual magic might be her sole hope of navigating this magical world. Dark, Magically Talented, no Bashing, Slytherin

16. Ranrok

Chapter 16 - Ranrok

Surprisingly, the following weeks had been rather quiet in comparison. Iris had gone to her classes and worked her way through her study list in her free time, when she hadn't spent time with Harry, Tracey, Ron or even Neville.

Hermione had started to hang around their group as well, but while she seemed to be friends with Harry, and at least neutral to Ron, there seemed to be some lingering antipathy towards Iris on Hermione's part. As a result, while Hermione did seem like an excellent studying partner, she had done most of her research on her own.

She hadn't made much progress with trying to combine colors and was slowly getting frustrated. Worse, it seemed Professor McGonagall in particular had taken her inability to perform the tasks she set for her as a sign for a supposed lack of diligence, and had consequently been assigning her extra essays, and even started taking house points. This didn't do much to improve Iris' already less than somber mood concerning the subject, resulting from her utter lack of progress in the one area of magic she had been most excited about.

Her feelings had come to a head when she approached Professor McGonagall, trying to explain her color magic, and hoping to gain some insight or at least her permission to start experimenting using colors.

"Miss Potter. Transfiguration is a very intricate and precise field of magic. It is most certainly not something you can just experiment with on a whim as a first year; especially, if you haven't even successfully performed your first assignment yet. Need I remind you of the very real dangers this could present? The very first lesson I taught to you in this class? I won't hear another word of this, unless you wish to be barred from participating in this class."

Iris wanted to explain, to argue, to shout at her how unfair she was being, but the stern glare the professor pinned her with stopped any words from coming out. Instead, she turned and fled the classroom.

Out of any other ideas, she had finally managed to overcome her reluctance and was now standing in front of the newly repaired door of the Arithmancy professor's office.

"Oh, Miss Potter, please come in. I was wondering when I'd see you again..." Professor Vector said in a silky voice.

The eager look she gave her made her somewhat uneasy, but she still preferred that to being stuck under McGonagall's glare, while being reprimanded for something beyond her control.

"Uh... Professor, I was hoping to ask you some more questions about my magic, and about the aspects," Iris said reluctantly.

"Of course! Have you made any progress with your magic?" the professor asked eagerly.

"Uh... well, I've managed one more spell, I think..."

Vector's eyebrows went up. "Is that so? Please, do demonstrate."

Iris looked around the room awkwardly. "Do you... have another vase, or something?" she asked sheepishly.

Vector brought out the wooden crate again, removed the prism from it, and placed the empty crate on the desk. "This should do."

Iris took a step to the side, so that Vector wouldn't be exactly behind the crate, then produced her wand, drew up blue light, jabbed it forward and firmly incanted "Depulso!"

A blue bolt of light slammed into the crate, and it shot back like a cannonball. There was a aloud crash, as the wooden crate disintegrated against her cupboard, cracking its doors in half.

Iris blushed, but Professor Vector didn't seem to even notice the destruction of her office. She was staring at Iris like a child in a candy store.

"That's a fourth-year spell! Well done!" she exclaimed excitedly.

"It was the only other spell I came across that seemed to only use a single aspect," Iris explained.

The Professor smiled. "True, mono-aspect spells are very rare, but they are also very powerful, especially if you manage to focus its aspect, and apparently even more so when cast using a pure aspect..."

Iris could already feel that she was starting to lose the professor. "So, I've been trying to figure out how to use multi-aspect spells, but so far, no luck."

Iris pondered for a moment about whether to tell Professor Vector about her shadows, but then she remembered the warning that their history teacher had given her and decided against it.

"When I combine two colors with two different light sources, they make a different color. Like, blue and yellow makes green. But I tried casting Wingardium Leviosa with green, and that didn't work. I didn't think it would, considering green is supposed to be life..." Iris trailed off, then kept talking.

"Then, I tried to find a spell that is made of two colors next to each other, so I could just make it a color just between the two. Well, I found Ventus, which is supposed to control air. But well, see for yourself."

She held up her wand again, focused and created yellow light. Iris bit the corner of her lip and shifted it a bit darker, a bit towards the red, but not quite orange. Somewhere between orange and yellow. Then, she took a breath, swished her wand and said, "Ventus."

Her wand sparked, but nothing much else happened. Vector frowned. Then, she walked back over to the box, placed the prism behind it again, and beckoned her over.

"Let's have a look at the spectrometer, I think have an idea what is going on."

Iris reluctantly stepped up to the box and repeated what she had done weeks ago. Her not quite orange light shone out of the box, hit the prism and refracted onto the wall in a thin line. Bugger.

"Yes, as I expected. You've somehow produced a color truly in between the two aspects, which I suppose results in your spell being able to use neither of them. What I would expect to happen here, if you truly produced both colors simultaneously, would be your wand appearing to glow at the same color, but the spectrum showing both a yellow and an orange line."

"But how am I supposed to do that? I've tried doing one color in one hand, and the other color in the other hand, but I can't combine them, and even if I hold my wand with both hands, it still doesn't work."

Vector frowned, as she appeared to think about that. "I suppose that must be like you are trying to cast two different spells simultaneously, both of which only having half the aspect they need. This would likely result in similar failures as if you were trying to cast with only a single aspect..."

She started pacing for a while, then turned back to Iris. "I wish I could provide you with some great insight on how to do this, but I'm afraid that is something you can only figure out for yourself."

Iris face fell further.

"However," the professor continued, "I can at least provide you with some assistance, I think. Do you think you can form the light into a thin beam?"

Iris frowned, removed her wand from the box, pointed and produced some red light. Then she narrowed it down into a cone. Iris bit her tongue and forced it down into a smaller and smaller diameter, until the light was a thin beam of light, much like a laser pointer. The professor smiled at her.

"Now, point it at the prism."

She aimed her wand, the line of red light swung over until it hit the prism dead center, refracted to the side and hit the wall in a single point. Iris turned to look at Vector in confusion. What had that achieved?

"There, now you have no need for the box. I fear that if there is a way for you to achieve multi-aspect spells, it will only be through diligent practice. I'll let you take the prism with you, so you can practice on your own in your spare time."

Vector flicked her wand, and the prism floated off the stand and towards Iris, who caught it out of the air. She supposed this was better than nothing.

"Do you have any other questions for me, while we are here?"

"Uhm, yeah. What aspects does transfiguration use?" Iris asked hopefully. She had been wanting to know the answer to that for weeks.

Vector blinked, and frowned. That wasn't good.

"I'm afraid it doesn't use any specific aspects. Transfiguration works on pure magic; it is only shaped by the intent and imagination of the caster."

That was about the last thing Iris had wanted to hear, but she decided to ask just to be sure.

"So, you are saying... I would need to use white light? As in all the colors at once?"

Vector looked at her sadly. "I'm afraid so."

Great. Iris couldn't even do two colors at once, how in the hell was she supposed to do all seven? Her chances of ever actually performing any transfigurations were looking worse than ever. She wondered what McGonagall would say to that. It looked like she wasn't going to be taking after Sabrina after all.

Somehow that last thought broke something in her. She swallowed and blinked away some stray tears. No. There was no way she was crying over a stupid tv show. Why had she cared that much anyway? Charms seemed much more useful than turning teapots into rabbits or some such nonsense.

Speaking of which, that brought another question to mind. "A-are there any other spells, you know, besides transfiguration, that only work with pure magic?"

Vector frowned. "That's a difficult question. Not all spells can be aspect focused, it's very hard to do with multi-aspect spells, so usually the difference is negligible..."

She seemed to ponder for a moment. "I suppose any spells that act on magic itself, instead of the physical world, would fall into that category."

That didn't sound good. "...What kind of spells would that be?"

"Oh... well like Finite Incantatem for example, or I suppose most shield charms that don't rely on physical force..."

That explained that. She had tried to perform the charm that Hermione had used to save her, after looking it up in the library. However, no matter which color she had tried, nothing at all had happened, ever.

Did that mean not only would she not be able to shield spells like Warrington had done, but also, she'd have no way to reverse anything that did hit her? How was she supposed to defend herself from whatever her house mates would come up with?

She had managed to dodge them so far, to keep the house wary of her through the rumors about what had happened with Warrington and her deliberate vagueness on the topic. But slowly, the bluff seemed to be failing. She had already been the victim of several tripping and prank jinxes in the corridors, especially close to the Slytherin common room. Half the time she had managed to dodge, but the other half she had been forced to endure whatever embarrassing effects would inevitably ensue. Even worse, one person in particular seemed to be joining in with the people trying to hex her. Draco. He had been half the reason she had wanted to be in Slytherin house in the first place, and now he was half the reason she didn't.

This new information only seemed to drive home just how bad of a spot she currently was in. Iris took a deep breath and looked at the professor. That had been enough bad news for one day.

"Well, thanks anyway, Professor. I'll better get going," she said dejectedly.

Before the professor could find another reason to try and dissect her for her broken magic, she hurried out the door with the prism clutched in her hand, and slammed it shut behind her.

~V~

Iris made her way down the halls over to history class. At the last second, she noticed something was off, and managed to dodge another jinx by an inch. She looked around furiously, trying to find the culprit, but whoever did it was long lost in the trudging mass of students. Damn. She'd really have to do something about this soon, before things got completely out of hand. Since defense didn't seem to be much of an option, aside from dodging that is, she'd have to settle for offense instead. Luckily, she had at least one spell that wouldn't be entirely useless for that.

At last, she made it to the classroom, and spotted Tracey in the corner, who had saved her a seat again. The girl was as giddy as always when it came to this class, at least ever since their new teacher had arrived.

The difference between Professor Lupin and Professor Binns was night and day. Well, to be fair, especially in the first week, he had looked almost as dead as Binns had, but he had seemed to get better recently, so that was something. And well, to put it bluntly, his class was awesome.

For one, they had gotten to see frickin' Merlin. Professor Lupin had brought out a huge crystalline bowl, and an assortment of vials, and had begun to explain about the beginnings of magical society here on the isles, and the establishment of the body now known as the Wizengamot. Then, just as Iris had started getting bored, he had poured one of the vials into the crystal bowl, and suddenly they were elsewhere. They had been able to watch people speak strange languages in a large round hall, and their professor had explained that this had been the first session of the Wizard's Council. Then he had pointed out a man with brown hair, a brown beard and sharp looking grey eyes, and made their jaws drop when he proclaimed that that guy was literally Merlin.

She hadn't paid much attention after that. Her thoughts had still been hung up on how someone could become so powerful, so infamous that people still swore by his name a thousand years later, and yet he just seemed to be some regular dude.

Iris wondered what Lupin would have in store for them this time. The door at the back swung open, and everyone's attention turned to the man who had entered. Tracey gasped. While he had been looking better and better with every lesson they had with him, now he was looking almost as dead and tired as he had the first day they met him in the library. At least, his robes seemed to be okay this time. He was leaning on the stone railing in front of the stairs, like he would collapse at any moment. Yet despite this, he managed a warm smile.

"Welcome back, class. I hope you're all well rested, unlike myself," he said with a weak chuckle.

The class responded with awkward silence. However, he continued on undeterred.

"Today, we'll talk about something a bit different. This is a topic you regularly wouldn't cover at all, but seeing how Defense only deals with dark creatures, and Care mostly with non-sapient beasts, I thought we'd take a little detour into the peculiar world of sapient magical creatures."

He slowly made his way down the stairs and finally leaned onto his desk.

"I suppose my predecessor has mentioned something about goblin rebellions?" he said with an amused expression.

This drew a mixture of chuckles and groans. That had basically been all Binns had been talking about for four hours straight. According to some older students, it had basically been all he had ever talked about. And of course, Hermione had raised her hand.

"He was talking about the attack of Ranrok I in Hogsmeade, the half-century of Goblin wars under Bodrod and later Ranrok II, the uprising of Lorbog II, and... well Tracey also brought up the near-rebellion of Ranrok III, although Binns didn't seem to remember that one..." she trailed off at the wide smile and glint in the professor's eyes.

"Very good, Miss Granger. Now. I wonder if any of you have any thoughts about what seems to be peculiar about that last sentence."

Ron chuckled. "That they are all named Ranrok?"

There was some laughter from the other students. Lupin smiled at him and said, "Five points to Gryffindor."

"What? I was joking!" Ron exclaimed in confusion.

Lupin continued. "Why do you think that is?"

Hermione's hand was raised again. "Is that a cultural thing about goblins naming themselves after famous past leaders?"

"Not quite. In fact, it gets even stranger. Did you know that the 'First', 'Second', and 'Third' titles is something that wizards have come up with, in order to keep better track of them? To goblinkind, they are all just 'Ranrok'."

Iris frowned. "But then, how do they tell them apart?"

Lupin smiled, and with a glint in his eyes replied, "They don't. To them, they are all just the same Ranrok."

Neville spoke up. "You're not saying that... that was the same goblin? The first rebellion was over 600 years ago! Goblins don't live that long, I don't think?"

"In a way, it was. But also, it wasn't. Ranrok III was just as much Ranrok as Ranrok I, even though they presumably looked different, and Ranrok I definitely died on the battlefield."

Now Iris was completely lost. "How can they be the same Ranrok, if Ranrok I died centuries ago?"

"Ah, we are getting to the crux of the matter. This is not something unique to goblins, you'll notice the same thing with centaurs, giants, merfolk, house elves, sometimes even trolls. Basically, all sapient magical creatures except for those that started out as humans."

He took a moment to let his gaze sweep through the class. "For creatures of magic, names hold power. Their names are not given, but instead earned or taken. They define them, their personality, their power, and their responsibilities. Also, there was and only ever will be a single Ranrok at a time. Magical names are unique, even throughout history. A goblin who takes the name of one of his predecessors inherits part of their power, responsibilities, and personality. Often this is done through a powerful enough goblin laying claim to the name of a deceased ancestor, although they don't have to be related. Also, they don't necessarily have to be deceased. A lot of the time, goblins rise through the ranks by defeating their rivals and taking their name for themselves."

Hermione spoke up. "But... That seems barbaric! Why would magical creatures adopt such a... violent culture? Are they all like that? Or is that just goblins?"

Lupin sighed. "Alas, this is not a result of their nature, or even a choice they made to build their society like this. It is simply Magic enforcing its will upon the world. Names of magical creatures are very literally powerful by themselves, and not because goblins believe that they hold some sort of significance. They simply are."

The class was silent as they began to process that. Iris tried to wrap her mind around the idea of there being a single Iris in the whole world, or of someone taking her name and her power with it. Luckily, this applied only to magical creatures.

"What about werewolves?" asked Draco.

The professor gave him a look. "As I said before, with beings that are technically classified as magical creatures, but who are basically human, such as vampires and werewolves, as well as all forms of what we call human half-breeds, this effect has not been observed. Many think this is an argument against their classification as magical creatures."

Draco scoffed at that, but stayed silent, earning himself another look from the professor.

The lesson then further dove into significant goblin names and their appearances throughout the centuries, and the professor pointed out how each of them seemed to act somewhat similarly to their predecessors, thus making them predictable. Next to Iris, Tracey had been on the edge of her seat, like in every lesson with Professor Lupin so far. It seemed Tracey not stepping up to teach herself had been a good choice after all, Iris thought in amusement.

~V~

Iris had spent the whole evening practicing using her newly acquired prism. So far, she had managed to make her beam of light shift smoothly between all the colors of the whole spectrum, even jump directly from color to color, always resulting in the beam being redirected at the appropriate angle. She had set up the prism on a table in her room, and painted all the colors she had been able to produce in the corresponding places on the walls. She had done this in order to help her visualize the frequencies, and maybe figure out how to manipulate it by looking at the angle instead of the color.

However, she had not gotten any closer to finally causing more than one beam to leave the prism. Well, there was one thing she had tried. She had cast her light, this time in its regular iridescent state, and shone it in a beam right at the prism. The result had been highly peculiar. Even after the prism, it seemed like the light was continually being broken and refracted at different angles, much like it had before. Whatever came out the other side was far from the pretty rainbow that Vector had demonstrated, in fact it seemed even more chaotic than her regular light. So that had been a dead end.

Lacking any other options, she had taken to practicing the Depulso charm, as well as learning as many new spells as she could. She had been trying to see if any would work with just one color, and then making uneducated guesses about which aspects they would use.

The room was lit up in a dim blue. Iris had been working on holding a fixed single color over a longer period of time, and was currently using it to read. She was sprawled out on her bed, her physics book once more floating above her, turning its pages when she needed it. She had been neglecting the book for the past month, and was currently trying to see if it could provide any more insight into how she would be able to cast multiple colors at once.

Apparently, the human eye could only really see three colors, red, green and blue. All the other colors were made up by the brain through a combination of these. That's why the green light of pure life aspect looked exactly like the green light she would need for force and control, but was in reality very different. Could she trick her brain into recognizing this as two distinct colors, instead of just green? Or rather, into creating them at least?

She didn't think she'd be able to truly see the difference, if human eyes really worked like that. But she could see the difference using her prism. She just had to figure out how to make her damn light do what she needed.

The door slammed, and a distraught Tracey appeared. Her hair was disheveled, her eyes were wide, and there was something off about her legs. Iris figured out what it was a moment later, when she hopped into the room, her feet apparently magically bound together.

Iris' eyes narrowed. "What happened?"

Tracey blushed. "Oh, I... Uhm... It's no big deal, I got hexed in the corridor..."

Iris didn't believe for a second that she was telling the whole story. It felt strangely like she was trying to hide something, and if she read her expression correctly, it had something to do with her. Did she get hexed by people trying to get at her? Tracey had been singled out together with her, ever since she had kept sitting with her instead of the rest of the house after her incident with Draco, but so far, the jinxes and hexes had been limited solely to her.

She had a suspicion that Tracey had been hiding the very fact that the attacks had included her for a while, probably because she assumed Iris would blame herself. Well, she assumed correctly.

"Do you know the Finite charm?" Iris asked.

"Uhm... no. Is that first year?"

"I'm actually not sure. Hermione used it on me, and I looked it up and found it in a general spell book. It can probably cancel the jinx on your feet."

"Can you do it?"

Iris frowned. She wished. "Not a chance, with my magic... But, well... I can try to teach you?"

Tracey brightened up. "Oh, I... I guess that would be nice."

Iris sat up fully and withdrew her wand. "Alright, so the spell is supposed to cancel ongoing magical effects. It won't do much against things that are not meant to be cancelled, stronger curses and such, but it should work against most schoolyard jinxes, I guess. You hold your wand like this, and swish it down something like that," she said, as she demonstrated the motion.

"And the incantation is Finite incantatem."

Tracey repeated the wand motion a few times and said the words, with Iris correcting her pronunciation after the first attempt. Finally, at her third attempt, yellow sparks flashed from her wand, and her feet came apart. Tracey jumped with joy, and Iris wryly smiled back. If only it would be that easy.

They spent some more minutes talking, until they got ready for bed. As Iris lay awake, staring at the ceiling, she pondered over this new development. It looked like she would have to figure out how to step up soon, or Tracey would pay the price as well. She might even decide it wasn't worth it to be her friend after all. Not that she could really blame her for that, but a large part of her wanted to avoid that possibility at all costs.

~V~

It had, of course, not been an isolated incident. For the past days, Iris noticed a pattern of some of her housemates tending to hang out in the long dark corridor from the stairs in the common room down to their room. At first, they had mostly made rude remarks, but now it seemed they started to toss hexes at them as soon as their attention waned. At least, nobody was attacking them openly yet. Iris had been racking her brain trying to come up with a plan on how to deal with the situation, but so far, she had come up with nothing except to try and use her one spell, if the opportunity presented itself.

And it seemed that opportunity had come this night. Iris and Tracey once again had made their way down towards their dorms together, as they had done for the past week, in hopes of standing a better chance of spotting any potential attacks. Iris had suggested to use the shadows instead to get to their room, but Tracey had shot that idea down immediately. It seemed she still wasn't eager to repeat that experience. Not that Iris really understood what her issue was. Sure, it looked scary, but it didn't really do anything. Well, she supposed it might be a lot more scary if you couldn't get out by yourself... Hermione was still giving her the cold shoulder.

Down the corridor they spotted several figures. One of them seemed way too familiar.

"Hey, look who it is..." came the much-reviled voice of Warrington. "My supposed adversary."

Iris stopped and squared her feet, as he approached them at a comfortable pace, his wand lazily hanging in his hand. Moonlight shone from the sole window in the corridor past her shoulders, giving the rest of the torchlit hallway an eerie look.

"Do you know how... annoying it is, to listen to all these rumors of how you beat me in a duel?"

"If I recall, you were the one who fled like a coward," Iris countered, making sure the others could hear them.

"Well, that was after I already wiped the floor with you. If it wasn't for that... thing... I'd happily have stayed to finish the job."

Iris swallowed, but she couldn't come up with a sufficient comeback to that. She'd probably have done the same if Harry hadn't been there.

"What's funny though, is that it seems you still haven't learned your lesson..." he said as he came to a stop a few meters in front of her, his wand held in her direction.

"So, should I show you your place again, or..." he smirked and his wand slowly panned over towards Tracey, "Would you prefer if I demonstrate on your little friend instead?"

Iris saw red in that moment. She couldn't let him cast anything on Tracey. Who knew what he would do to her? She had only this one chance, and she'd be damned if she wasted it. His wand currently was pointing lazily towards Tracey, away from her, and his stance was too casual. If she was fast enough, maybe, she could catch him off guard.

Iris whipped up her wand which she had been palming underneath her robes, pointed it straight at Warrington's chest, and drew up blue light. She threw everything into her spell, trying to create the biggest flash of blue she could muster, much like she had done with the Cerberus, except she didn't have any extra time to charge it up, so whatever she could manage in the single second she had would have to do. She jabbed her wand and yelled "Depulso!"

One second had still been too much; Warrington had been ready. He was already moving, moving back half a step, too close to dodge. He swished his wand in an arc, and Iris watched in dismay as that damn pale blue shield once again shimmered into view at his shouted cry of "Protego!"

The crackling bolt of blue energy raced towards him, slammed into the shield and exploded with a bang. A bright flash of blue lit up the corridor as her spell came apart, and Warrington's eyes barely managed to widen a fraction as the blast shattered his shield, the backlash knocking him onto his bum with a dumbfounded expression.

"Miss Potter," came a low and dangerous voice from right behind her. She whirled to face the source, her still crackling wand swinging around, out of breath from the spell she had cast, but yet ready to face her secondary attacker when-

"Detention. My office, right now," said a very not amused Professor Snape.

Iris blinked as she realized what or rather who was standing in front of her with an unreadable expression, then blushed, and lowered her wand.

~V~

The girl sullenly trudged into the dimly lit office of the Potions professor, and the door slammed shut behind her. She slowly turned and looked warily at Snape, who was still staring at her with a blank expression. After a few seconds he sighed and then spoke, "You will be using the provided mortar and pestle to crush the remainder of this year's shipment of moonstone into moonstone powder."

A glance at the table revealed said utensils, as well as a large pile of milky colored rocks. That looked like it was going to take a while. Moonstone was a vital ingredient in many potions related to the lunar cycle, as well as potions that influence the mind, and they had been using it in class several times. However, it had always been provided in powdered form. As she walked up and reluctantly reached for the first stone, he spoke up again.

"You may want to exercise caution. While it is perfectly safe to handle in class, powdered moonstone does react violently when exposed to direct moonlight." He reached for the sack which already contained a small amount of grey powder, retrieved just a pinch, and tossed it to his side.

Specks of dust floated from his fingers, and she watched as they slowly settled down, until they entered the beam of moonlight which was shining through his small office window. The instant the light touched the powder, it lit up in a brilliant blue flame. Iris jumped and took a step back from the moonlight. If he wanted to make sure she wasn't going to work sloppily, he had certainly achieved his goal.

Iris reached for the pestle and placed the first stone inside the stone bowl. She bit her tongue in the corner of her mouth and set to work. Snape was giving her an odd look, but soon seemed to shrug it off and turned to sit at his desk. Carefully, she started to grind it down, intent on kicking up as little dust as possible. After she had been working for a few minutes, he spoke up again.

"Do you know why you are here?"

She paused and looked up. "Because of casting spells in the hallway?"

"To clarify, do you know why you are here, and Warrington is not?"

'Because you have it out for me and Harry?' she thought, but instead shook her head. Snape was her second least favorite professor, and that was despite the fact that his class was slowly turning into her favorite subject. It was the only subject that did anything... well... magical, that she seemed to be actually good at, despite the Professors occasional attempts at belittling her work.

"Because you cast the first spell," he said simply.

Iris blinked. "What? But he was... He was about to attack Tracey! I had to try and take him off guard!"

"He was baiting you into attacking him. The rules of Slytherin only apply to attacks. He is perfectly within his rights to defend himself, should you throw a spell at him. Foolish girl."

Iris didn't know what to say to that. She wanted to argue, tell him he was being unfair, but some part of her realized that he was right. It seemed that even with all their hostility, the Slytherins still respected Snape's rules. She blushed and looked back down at the mortar. Just what had she been thinking?

The pestle slammed down on the mortar, creating a small dust cloud. Iris gasped and tried to contain it, yet was forced to watch in vain as some of it started to float towards the moonlight.

"Evanesco."

Iris breathed a sigh of relief as the airborne dust vanished, but then realized Snape was staring at her and she sheepishly resumed her work using less force. She waited for the inevitable reprimand, mocking words, taken points, anything. Yet the Potions professor remained strangely silent for the rest of the detention, still wearing his unreadable expression.