That night I didn't go to sleep. I got into bed, and then simply remained awake, my eyes open to the dorm's darkness, and waited impatiently until all the other girls had finally fallen asleep, their breathing evening out.

Then, ever so silently, I got up and slipped out of our dorm and into the common room.

The large lobby-like room was deserted at night, and so I could explore it to my heart's content. I hadn't been able to spend much time in here —if at all— on account of either Selwyn or his followers always being here doing homework, or torturing puppies or whatever it was they did. The common room was hostile territory, to cross with my head down and at a quick pace.

But now it almost felt welcoming, the way it was softly lit in the warm light cast by the embers in the large fireplace —its magical fire never went out, it simply shifted intensities during the day. And I spent a few minutes walking around, sitting on one of the leather armchairs for a change, and examining the paintings of landscapes at night and old people sleeping.

A towering grandfather clock placed against the side wall told me I still had some time to wait until Harry's duel was supposed to happen, so I walked up to the grand windows and gazed at the blackness of the lake outside.

Of course, there was nothing to see. With no light at all coming in from outside, the windows' glass only showed me my own reflection. That of Sylvia, the angular face I was now wearing, the tangly black hair I was by now so accustomed to.

I rested my left hand against the glass; it was cold to the touch, the lake's chilliness seeping through.

I could imagine all the weight from the lake, all the immense pressure the unthinkable tons of water exerted over that fine pane of glass. And I couldn't help but feeling a sort of kinship to it, to this window, as weird as that sounded. I imagined I was myself another piece of glass; holding the pressure of the future. The weight of my knowledge, of all the things I could change, all the people I could save. And not only in the Wizarding World, but across the entire Earth. Could I stop wars and terrorist attacks? Could I warn of natural disasters?

And if I didn't, were all those deaths because of me? Were they my fault now, should I choose not do anything?

I knew the window could only hold the lake back because of its enchantments, because of the help of magic. I wasn't so sure about myself, though. Was there something else keeping me sane, some bulwark within me I hadn't noticed so far? Or would it be too much at some point? Would I someday collapse under this weight, simply crumble into myself like a piece of paper?

"Help," I muttered to the window.

The building, of course, didn't respond.

So I let out a sigh and stepped away from the lake, turning my gaze at the clock once more. It was time: plans to do, plots to enact.

I gathered my courage, double-checked my wand was in my pocket —and that was one thing I had now that was unarguably better than in my previous life: pockets!— and walked out of the Slytherin common room.

The dungeons at night were chilly. Which wasn't surprising, because Hogwarts itself was chilly at the best of times; but the dungeons were chilli-er, especially so in my pyjamas. But at least I'd had the foresight to wear my dressing gown on top of them —and also because, as much as I loved my fairies, they were not the best choice of attire for a covert mission. So I just wrapped myself in it and moved forwards as fast as I dared, making use of all those previous years' accumulated experience when I'd skulked at night while at my foster parents' or at the Residence.

And there was something I liked about the world at night. Something calming, peaceful. I liked how it all looked familiar and yet so different at the same time, without light and without people. How I could be a different kind of me, a freer one perhaps, not having to watch over what I said and what I did in front of everyone else. Not having to pretend as much.

There was less talking, more doing; a more visceral way of experiencing life. And as a bonus: it was easier to appreciate the details of Hogwarts' architecture —even if they were only illuminated by the soft glimmer of my wand, the lighting charm at its lowest intensity so as to not wake up the paintings. But the moving shadows put things into relief in a way that just didn't happen during the day, and that highlighted the decorated archways atop the corridors, the detailing on the statues and the little imperfections, the erosion on the banisters after literal centuries of use.

I ascended towards the ground floor of the castle, at some point having to wait behind a corner for a couple of prefects making their patrol to walk past —they were easy to anticipate, not trying to hide their presence in the slightest as they talked about their favourite Quidditch league team. Up here the corridors and hallways were wider, harder to hide in, so I tried to move as quickly as I dared.

And soon enough I reached my destination by the Entrance Hall. I leaned around the corner to check that it was empty and... jackpot! I rushed forwards towards the door.

You see, tonight was Harry's duel at midnight. I didn't know if he and Ron would be in the trophy room or not after my warning, but that changed nothing. Because I knew Draco would have told Filch regardless, so Filch would be there no matter the case.

And if Filch was stalking the trophy room, it meant he wasn't here; in his office.

Which I was about to raid.

"Alohomora," I muttered. I was rewarded by the click of the door's lock unlatching. I pushed the door open smoothly, checked to see the office was indeed empty, and let myself in.

Filch's office was a small room dominated by his desk. Or maybe it felt small because of how cramped it was: with large wooden cabinets covering three of its walls, an assortment of chains, manacles, and large iron keys hanging from the hooks in the wall. Any free space between or on top the cabinets was filled by crates stacked on top of each other.

"Okay... let's see... Lumos!" I held my lit wand in my mouth, holding it in place with my teeth as I used both my hands to open cabinet doors and drawers, looking for that one specific item. But I only found stupid stuff: loads of papers and stationery, tools —hammers and a shovel, and some others that looked positively medieval. One of the cabinets was filled to the brim with old clothes and rags.

Come on... where are you... where are you... There! One of the cabinets had a lettering that read: 'Confiscated and dangerous'.

"Alohomora." Shit, how many locks...? "Alohomora. Alohomora. Alohomora!"

I eyed the now open four locks with some bewilderment. I mean, it's not paranoia if they're really out to steal from you, right? Just... ineffective.

But now I was in. There were loads of interesting items inside the cabinet: fireworks, of course, a broomstick —which I didn't believe for a minute would be safe to use, if it was stored here— some sort of rope, a quill that was... writing on a piece of parchment? I edged to look at what the words said:

'—homora. Alohomora!' said the little thief. The criminal started going through the loot stored in the cabinet, her eyes glinting with greed. She read the parchment written by the Self-Writing Quill. 'What the...?' muttered the miscreant. 'Uhm. Testing? One, two, three,' she continued. 'Oh, you're coming with me!' she excl—

I placed the quill in one of my dressing gown's pockets —I figured it was like the one that reporter woman from The Daily Prophet carried– along with a few of the other items: a handful of stink pellets, some of the smaller fireworks, a small metal box with a label that said 'Sneezing Snuffbox', a shiny finger ring, plus some of the other various trinkets.

But the one item I really wanted wasn't here.

"Revelio!" I tried, but to no avail.

So, no Marauder's Map.

Which sucked, because getting the map into my hands was half the reason I had planned this little outing, even though I'd had my doubts it would still be here. I knew the Weasley twins were supposed to have stolen it from Filch's office during the first year; I just couldn't remember if that was their first year or Harry's first year.

Theirs, apparently.

And this was a spanner in my works, because the map would've been a godsend. Something I could've exploited the hell out of for two entire years before I'd had to lend it to Harry —which would have also garnered me some favour in his eyes.

And it was wasted on the twins. Yeah, they were more effective pranksters thanks to it, but that was all they were using it for, wasn't it? I could do so much more with it, even if solely as an excuse for my information, if say... I chose to warn Dumbledore of the presence of one Peter Pettigrew.

Not that I planned to, at the moment; there was just too much risk and too little benefit for that one manoeuvre. It would upend the plot in unpredictable ways, and I didn't want to underestimate Pettigrew and have him escape ahead of time either. But it was a moot point, since without the map I had no solid way of justifying how I knew the random rat was actually the creepy animagus I knew it was.

Well, nothing to it, I guessed. At least I wouldn't leave empty handed, I thought as I rummaged through the depths of the cabinet. A good yield for a dishonest night's work.

The rope looked interesting, even though I had no idea what it would do. But it was simply too heavy and large to hide in a pocket if, say, I happened to run into a sleepless McGonagall or something on my way back. So regretfully I left it behind.

There was also one of those chattering teeth plastic toys. I absent-mindedly picked it up to examine it closer, since I remembered having had one back when I was a child in my previous life; but the moment my fingers brushed it, it leapt out of the cabinet, the teeth clacking as it darted across the office like a small panicked animal, all the while screaming in a shrill loud voice: "Aaaaah! Heeeelp! Don't hurt meeeee!"

Its noise pierced the night's silence like an arrow.

"Shut up, you stupid thing! You'll wake up the entire castle!"

"Nooooo! Pleeeeease! Heeeeeeelp!"

Yeah, time to leg it.

I rushed out of the office, not bothering with closing the door behind me —there was no hiding all that ruckus— and ran across the Entrance Hall and towards the stairs that would take me back to the dungeons.

"Noooooo!"

I was halfway there when I saw the moving light coming from the nearby corridor. I hid behind one of the columns there and watched as Filch ran towards his office, carrying a lantern to light the way. He didn't seem to have seen me.

"She is here!" shouted the painting right above my head. It depicted an older gentleman wearing a top hat. "She is hiding right here!"

"You snitch!" I snapped back. But Filch was already turning back towards me, so I ran once more, this time towards the only available exit: one of the twisting staircases that lead up to the second floor. I ran up the stairs two steps at a time.

I raced past door after door and corridors I didn't know where they led to. All the while with the telltale light of Filch's lantern just on my heels. At some point, I realized this wasn't working, since he probably knew the castle in and out, shortcuts included. So I fished one of the items I'd just picked up from the cabinet. The little pouch had a label in what I guessed was the caretaker's handwriting that said 'Peruvian Instant Darkness Powder'. I emptied it across the corridor, causing a cloud of black fog to cover it competently.

There goes three Galleons, at least.

It did the trick, though. I managed to pull ahead, then turned and entered the Grand Staircase, finally out of Filch's sight. I started quickly descending back towards the dungeons when the flight of stairs I was standing on suddenly started rotating, repositioning itself so that it now led towards another flight that headed upwards.

Damn it. The dungeons are downstairs, not up!

I had no choice but to follow the stupid stairs up, though. Well, I could always try jumping to a lower level; but that wasn't just risky, it was potentially suicidal.

And soon enough I wished I'd taken that broom from the cabinet, dangerous or not. Because yeah, the Grand Staircase took me straight to the third floor. Because of course it did.

I shook my head and let out a tired sigh.

It was okay, though. Or at least that's what I told myself. The castle was large, and I wasn't that close to the forbidden corridor. Plus, if Filch had had time to return to his office, that meant the Gryffindors were probably well on their way towards their own common room by now.

If they didn't heed my warning, that is. Maybe they listened to me and stayed home tonight. And that would be me changing the plot, but I didn't mind it too much. Without Quirrell in the castle that side of the plot was pretty much out of whack anyway, and so I was willing to sacrifice what remained of it if that meant getting Harry to listen to my advice in the future. But it had also been a calculated risk, because I pretty much expected them to not have taken my words at face value, which meant it was likely they had been around these parts not too long ago.

I just had to move slowly and keep an eye out for more surprises, that's all. Forget about the Grand Staircase, I would instead make my way towards the Ravenclaw tower and then descend using the spiral stairway there; that one at least behaved like rational architecture.

A few minutes later I was finally starting to relax when I heard it. It sounded like a whimper, like sniffing, coming from the hallway to my left.

I paused, not sure of what to do. Like, the Ravenclaw tower was right there. Right there!

Of course, curiosity won out in the end, and so I slowly approached the source of the sounds, wand in hand. There was some moonlight coming through the windows along the wall, so at least I didn't need to cast a lighting charm.

Sod it. Why not, Sylvia? Stick your nose into the obvious complication. What could possibly go wrong?

I crept along the wall to discover... a house-elf? Well, it was a small creature dressed in rags and with comically large ears, so I guessed that's what it —he, she?— was. Whatever their gender they were sitting on the floor, crying. And... was that blood? What the hell?

It painted an odd picture, the little creature bathed in the eerie silvery moonlight, the blood in their ill-fitting tunic catching the eye. And, I guessed I must have made some movement, or perhaps those ears weren't just for show; because the house-elf turned to face me, quickly lifting themselves with a brisk jump.

"Master said no one was to see Squeeble!" he moaned. "Not teachers and not studentses, he said!"

"Erm... hello?" I tried, approaching him slowly and with my hands visible, like you would a panicking child.

"Squeeble is seen! Squeeble is seen!"

"Well... you know... technically, I didn't see you. I heard you first."

He let out another crying fit, grasping and tugging at his tunic with both hands. "Master is right! Squeeble is a poor excuse of an elf!"

"Shh... don't be so loud. Who is your—"

But he simply disapparated away with a 'pop' before I could even finish the sentence. Rude.

I was about to walk away when I saw a glint out the corner of my eye. I walked up to the spot where the elf —Squeeble, apparently— had been sitting not a minute ago and examined it. There was a metal key on the floor. What, had he left it behind?

I picked it up, turning it under the moonlight. There were no marks nor any symbols or words engraved on its milky white surface.

Oh well.

I pocketed it, and went back towards the dungeons. This was enough excitement for one night.

At least the Ravenclaw staircase was empty of people, Gryffindors, prefects, caretakers and house-elves alike. And so I had no more tense encounters as I descended and crossed back the ground level to finally return to the Slytherin common room. I entered our dorm in complete silence, stored haphazardly my dressing gown —with all of tonight's loot— in my trunk, and climbed back into bed.

"Sylvia?" whispered Tracey Davis from the bed next to mine. "You were gone."

"I had to pee."

"You were gone for more than an hour."

"I had a lot of pee. Go back to sleep, Tracey."

She gave me an annoyed harrumph, but turned in her bed without any more comments, and soon enough her breathing betrayed her to be asleep once more.

I placed my wand back under my pillow, and ran my fingers once more across the smooth surface of the odd little key the elf had dropped. I felt asleep wondering what it could open, although I already had some ideas of what it might be.

The next morning, after all that stress and excitement from the previous day I wanted nothing but to eat my toast in peace and silence. We had History of Magic first hour, something which I deeply approved of, seeing as it would be my chance to recover some of my lost sleep.

The universe seemed determined to ignore my —pretty reasonable— desires, though. Call it Karma if you will.

First it was Malfoy, who spent the breakfast making annoying noises about Ron and Harry still being at Hogwarts despite his warnings to Filch. He then went on and on about his father being in the Board of Governors, and how he was going to make sure the two Gryffindors would never set foot in the castle again. The only bright point of all that was that —looking at the mix of tiredness and excitement in Harry's face— I heavily suspected they had pretty much ignored my warning. Which served me well, since by now they would know for sure I had been telling them the truth the day before. So one point in my favour.

This bright point didn't last long, though, as the owls arrived soon after that, one of them carrying the replies for me from both St. Mungo's and the French Ministry. They were two very polite letters telling me that they had no idea of what in the world I was talking about, and that no, that weird surname of mine wasn't in any of their records. The lady from St. Mungo's even gave me the oh-so-very-helpful suggestion of asking the Ministry of Magic.

I must have been a bit too careless in my discouragement, because at some point Bulstrode of all people put hands in my letter from St. Mungo's and gave it to Parkinson, who said with false commiseration: "Oh, no... Are you having trouble finding if your family was magical, Sarramond? Perhaps... perhaps that is because they weren't? Do you think that could be the reason?..."

And because I was feeling more annoyed than witty that morning, I replied by accidentally knocking her pumpkin juice all over her cereal, and saying: "Oops."

"You filthy mudblood!" she started. "You are going to—"

"Really? Are we going to do this here in public, after what Prefect Farley said? Do you need reminding?"

That took the wind out of her sails, but she said in an ominous tone: "Farley isn't going to save you come winter break... if you even make it that far."

"If I make... is that a threat, Pansy? You threatening me?"

She had the audacity of looking surprised: "Threat—? Oh, why would you think that? You are now in polite society, you see; not in a... a Muggle orphanage! There is no need to act like—"

"Yeah, right. Perhaps you should give her the etiquette lessons instead," I said, pointing at Bulstrode next to her, whose nose sported a stain of blueberry jam.

I pretty much ignored the two girls after that point. I wasn't really worried about them: Bulstrode lacked initiative and Parkinson lacked courage to do anything more than needling me. As long as I kept it to spoken barbs and insults, and avoided escalating the fight, I should be safe from them.

Of course, it didn't escape me that knocking her drink down pretty much qualified as escalating. But what could I say: I'd never been that good at toeing lines.

And then there was Tracey.

I had hoped she'd have forgotten about my little escapade the previous night, but then one of our second year housemates mentioned: "You should avoid Filch today. I heard someone ransacked his office last night and he is proper miffed."

After that, the girl's face transformed into a scowl.

But what did she expect? We weren't really friends, we just had an agreement, with very defined bounds. So why would she expect me to involve her in any of my other plans and ventures?

Because she was bloody eleven, of course. Because there's only so much pretending she could do before she started catching feelings.

And because she was alone, other than for me.

I guess in a different world she could've ended up getting along with Sally-Anne Perks, falling into Greengrass' orbit like the other girl had, becoming her glorified handmaid. But instead she had visibly aligned herself with me, just by virtue of sitting by my side at class. And because I was toxic, the rest of our house also shunned her by extension. She should have anticipated that, of course; but again: she was eleven.

She at least was mature enough to know that I didn't owe her any explanations, but not enough to prevent her own feelings from showing through. So for the rest of the morning I had my very personal grey cloud of rain following me whenever I went: to History of Magic, to Transfiguration...

Tracey was also my only ally, because I was failing at finding new in-roads with the other Slytherins in my year. My little homework-sharing scheme had been successful enough to buy me some acceptance from my first year peers, but it hadn't evolved into anything other than strictly academical. They tolerated me well enough, but didn't really include me in their activities or conversations, nor they considered me one of their own. It didn't help that I didn't have the option of socializing with them in the common room.

The better path to advance in that front was through Greengrass, but she was too neutral for that, and I had the feeling she wouldn't show any open support towards me while Selwyn had me in his cross-sights. Perks I could attempt to steal from Greengrass' side —and I suspected she would probably enjoy being with me and Tracey much more than being subservient to Daphne's wishes— but that would for sure turn the little princess against me, so better not to do that. And as for Zabini... he seemed to like me well enough, but I doubted he would ever lift a finger to help anyone other than himself.

So I had hit a glass ceiling in Slytherin, so to speak. At least for the time being. If I wanted to grow my circle of influence, I needed to look elsewhere.

Which was why that particular afternoon found me entrenched in the library —behind a Jenga tower of books that rose about a foot or so over my head— even when I didn't have any actual homework to work on, and it wasn't one of the two days that Tracey Davis had to spend with me. It also gave me some relief from her scowl, so yeah.

Not that I was idling my time away. I was reading 'A Comprehensive History of British Magical Families: Genealogy and Achievements', and pretty much scanning page after page in search of any surname that started with an 'S' and sounded even vaguely like mine.

"Solomon Sweetingwater... no. Sherwood Swindonhurst... no. Sophronia of Snowdonia... no, and wow did your parents hate you..."

Because it wasn't enough to try to learn magic while preventing a war from starting early, no, of course not. I also had to deal with the sword of a psychopathic Damocles hanging over my head. And to be fair, the letters I got that morning had rekindled the fire on me to find a way to solve this thing already.

I'd need to ask about for a way to send a letter to the Muggle world. I'd considered asking Snape, on account of him being technically my head of house, but I'd rather try first finding the information on my own —asking other students, that is— before bothering him. And that was also a problem, because there were no Muggleborns in Slytherin, so I'd need to ask people of the other houses. And I guessed a random Slytherin approaching people to ask if they happened to be Muggleborns could end up raising some alarms.

Hermione would know, though. Probably. There had to be a way for her to keep in contact with her parents, right?

And as if on cue...

"Oh! Of course it is you!"

I rose my eyes to meet the young girl standing in front of me, her arms crossed over a bag, her whole body posture radiating annoyance.

"Hello Granger! Anything I can help you with?"

"Don't you pretend to– ugh! Did you seriously take out every single copy of 'Extreme Incantations' in the entire library?"

My gaze followed hers to land on the towering pile of books on my table. I shrugged.

"Oh. I did, didn't I? How silly of me."

"And you have five– no, six copies of 'Intermediate Transfiguration' here! I was looking for that one too."

I waved magnanimously at the free chair across from me. "Be my guest."

"Why?!" she asked me in a scathing tone, that turned into an angry whisper when she remembered where we were. "Why are you doing this? It must have taken quite some time. Does irritating people amuse you so much?"

"Well, yes? But that's not why I did it. I'm actually starting a club. Congrats by the way, you're the first member! After me, that is."

"A... club?"

"Yes. You know how at university they have all those student clubs and such? Well, I thought I could start one here. More of a study group, though. But only for the brightest students in our year. I don't know about you, but sometimes it's hard to find people in my house who also like reading ahead..."

Yeah, I was shamelessly tugging at her heartstrings. But it seemed to work well enough, because even though she was still annoyed, I could tell she also didn't want to be excluded from a club literally for the smartest people at Hogwarts. She glared at me, but in the end she placed her bag down on the table, extracted the two books from the pile —not with little difficulty— and sat down in a huff.

Victory!

"The books are the bait," I explained, because I was just dying to share my totally genius plan with someone. "Like, if you want to catch flies, you use honey. So if you want to catch brainy students, you use..."

"Books," she grumbled.

"Ah, but not just any books! These are the ones who aren't needed for homework, but that the professors mentioned for those of us who wanted to read in advance, or learn more than what will be covered in–"

"Yes, very clever. But now that I've finally found a copy of 'Extreme Incantations' I'd like to read it in silence."

I nodded in acquiescence and closed my mouth. I had to be careful now. The trap had worked, but I didn't want to annoy her to the point she would simply walk away with the tomes in her bag. And I wasn't sure if the club thing would actually work, in fact. After all, Hermione was always pictured as the nerdiest of all the students, so perhaps she'd turn out to be the only one going after these particular books.

My fears were allayed not too long after, when two Ravenclaw students approached the table. "Hi," said the taller one. "Can I borrow one of those?"

I guess my expression was one of extreme smugness, because Hermione rolled her eyes as I turned to the Ravenclaws saying: "Be my guest..."

But I could tell she liked my idea, because soon enough she stopped reading in silence to introduce herself to the other two, who had taken seats around our table. And just like that a lively conversation started, to the point that we had to ask forgiveness to Madam Pince after she threatened us with detention. It was probably a welcomed relief for Hermione, a respite from the isolation she must've been going through at Gryffindor.

Also a respite for me, from my own isolation at Slytherin, if I was being honest here.

We ended up with five people in the group, me included: Hermione, the two Ravenclaws —Anthony Goldstein and Michael Corner— and Susan Bones from Hufflepuff.

We did receive one last unexpected visit, not long before we had to leave for dinner: that of Blaise Zabini.

He approached and looked at me, then at the now diminished tower of books, then at the group of four siting around the table. I could almost see the gears turning inside his head, and the moment they snapped into place a second later, a fox-like grin blooming across his face.

"Oh... what webs we weave?"

"Piss off Zabini, a beehive can only have one queen," I said.

He tutted, grabbed a book from the pile, did a lazy mock reverence to me, and sauntered away.

I shrugged off the others' curious stares. "Believe me, it's better this way."

We hashed out some basic rules for our little group: we would meet here once a week to study together, or discuss book recommendations. Bones insisted we invited more people, but the Ravenclaws and I were reluctant. In the end we agreed other people could join as long as they were vetted by the rest.

It was a good catch, Susan Bones, and well worth the compromise. I didn't remember the exact details, but I knew someone from her family was some sort of high ranking official at the Ministry, which was always a useful connection to have.

And now I have become Slughorn, the snatcher of talent.