"You know," said Tracey Davis, a hint of frustration noticeable in her voice. "When I told you I was in, I never imagined you'd have me spend Hallowe'en morning looking at art!"

I paused to turn away from the painting I was examining, depicting a Dodo —sorry, a Diricawl— along with its baby chicks, all gathered around an egg that was shaking slightly on its own, cracks beginning to appear across its smooth surface.

"We're not looking at art," I reminded her, gesturing at the many paintings that covered the corridor's walls. "We're looking for a secret."

"Yes, yes. A painted apple, you told me already."

"A pear! Don't tell me you've been looking for an apple all this time! Oh, come on Tracey! We'll have to start again–"

I stopped my tirade when I realized she was sniggering at me behind her hand. I shook my head. "You prat."

She continued laughing as I walked up to the next canvas over, of a wizard eating some grapes. Fruit at last! So close and yet so far. 'Do you mind?' the painted man asked me, annoyed at my staring.

"I just don't know what's so special about it," asked Tracey, recovered from her laughing fit and now examining a painting of a chocolate cake. "Why spend our entire free hour doing... this?"

"It's a surprise, Tracey. The point of a surprise is that you don't know."

"I don't think I like surprises anymore," she commented in a rueful tone, "I used to like them, but then the Sorting Hat went 'Surprise!' and sorted me into Slytherin."

"What were you hoping for? Hufflepuff?"

She shot me a glare. "My father is a Hufflepuff."

"Nothing wrong with it," I shrugged, stepping in front of a portrait of a broken lute. "And I mean, you are at least patient and loyal, if you're still down here with me rather than... you know, up there and flying on a broom by the lake or something."

For a moment I thought the reminder of what else she could be doing with her time would prove to be a dire mistake on my part, as I saw her resolve waver for a moment, but then she simply turned towards the next painting on her side of the corridor and said: "Sure. But no, I didn't have a favourite. It's just... I guessed it would be either Hufflepuff or Ravenclaw, like my mother. I never expected to be in the pure-blood house, you see."

"That I can sympathise with, believe me. I even asked the hat to put me into Gryffindor, but here I am."

She seemed to remember then who she was talking to, because she remained awkwardly silent after that last comment of mine, her attention focused on the paintings once more.

"The Sneakoscope was buzzing before, by the way," she commented at last. "Right after we woke up."

"It's always buzzing. That's why you had to put it under all those clothes."

"Yes, but it was buzzing harder. Maybe Parkinson and Bulstrode are up to something."

"They always are."

She let out a frustrated huff. "You're impossible!"

I nodded wisely as I paused in front of yet another canvas, this one much more promising. And sure enough: "I think this is it."

"You know," commented Tracey as she approached to look at the piece of art. "We could have saved a lot of time if you'd told me the painting was of a bowl of fruit."

I gave her a shrug. "I wasn't sure, couldn't remember that detail. But look at this..."

Tickling the pear felt oddly invasive, all my previous visits to museums in two separate lives almost screaming at me at the taboo nature of the act. I could see Tracey felt the same, because she cringed and looked at me accusingly, like she was thinking: 'You only look at the art! You very definitely never ever touch the art, you degenerate!'

But the pear itself seemed to like it, because it let out a chime that resembled a laugh as it morphed into the shape of a doorknob, emerging out of the canvas' surface.

I grabbed it, said "Voilà!" to Tracey, and opened the door at once, stepping into the Hogwarts' Kitchens, with her following on my footsteps.

And in retrospect, perhaps visiting the Kitchens on the day of the Hallowe'en feast wasn't my brightest idea. Because it was madness.

The five tables that mirrored the distribution of those in the Great Hall above were bursting with all sort of platters, dishes and pitchers, some magically piled on top of each other into unstable stacks that rose far above our height. A dozen stoves were burning hot, with large pieces of beef levitating on top of some of them, enormous bubbling cauldrons over the others. Flying across the air were bowls of ingredients, knives and spoons, tableware and pieces of cake. I had to crouch to dodge a very aggressive salt cellar that shot by my head the moment I stepped foot into the cavernous kitchens. And pumpkins. There were bloody pumpkins floating everywhere.

There were also house-elves everywhere: elves running down the isles and under the tables, elves perched to the top of the tower of puddings, elves shouting about missing carrots, elves cleaning dishes by the sink visible in the far distance, elves handling the stoves with one hand while peeling potatoes with the other, elves carrying bowls of soups larger than themselves, elves running towards us and saying: "Studentses! Studentses in the kitchen! Oh no, they must be hungry if they's here!"

I rose my hands, trying my best to placate their onslaught, but it was futile and a moment later I found myself holding a tray of biscuits and a glass of pumpkin juice in my hands.

"Uh... thanks. Thank you, but–" aaand now one of them was crying because I had just thanked them, the other calling for even more elves to join us, just so that they could also witness my gratitude. In the distance, I heard a couple of plates crash into each other and shatter into a thousand pieces, as the elves' attention went to us.

I turned my gaze at Tracey with no little desperation, hoping that her magical background would be more effective at dealing with the little creatures, but she was still in her shell-socked-at-the-pandemonium stage; her mouth open wide and her hands holding a bowl of peach rings that hadn't been there a moment before.

I sighed, took a bite off a biscuit and made some pleased noises to pacify them —which seemed to work, because slowly they started to return to their work— and then approached the two of them who had noticed us the first.

"The food is great," I said, carefully walking my way around the word 'thanks', "but that's not why we're here, actually."

"Ith's noth?" asked Tracey behind me, munching on a peach ring.

"Oh, does you need something else? Your clothes cleaned, your bedspread mended? You can tell Dripple!" said one of the elves, taller than the others, with a full face and droopy ears.

"Or Plixiette!" said the other, which I guessed was a her. She was stick-thin and with a sock worn as a scarf around her neck.

"Well... now that you mention it, one of my socks is a little worn out, but– wait! Hold on! That's not why we're here either! Actually, I'm looking for a house-elf. I ran into him some days ago and he was hurt and bleeding. I guessed you guys would know who he was."

"Bleeding elfses?"

"Hurt elfses? In Hogwarts? Impossible! Master Dumbledore always treats us good. He would never!"

"No, no, I'm not saying it was the Headmaster," I clarified. Then sighed, this was going nowhere. "Just... do you happen to know a house-elf named Squeeble? Does he work here too?"

Both creatures scrunched their faces in concentration, muttering 'Squeeble, Squeeble...' Then they rushed back into the depths of the kitchen, towards the little shanty town that covered one entire wall of the room, built out of stacked barrels with small doors and windows opening into them.

I turned towards Tracey, who was shaking her head: "How did you know about all this? This place?"

"I read it in a book," I said, completely honest.

"And do... these elves make all the food we eat?"

"Where did you think it came from? It can't be conjured; remember that lecture of McGonagall about Gamp's Law?"

She shrugged. "Don't know... I never thought of it, I guess."

"It's slaves. It's always slaves. Just like with the pyramids."

"House-elves aren't slaves!" she protested, indignant.

"Are they paid?" I asked, waving my hand to encompass the dozens of creatures... well, slaving in the kitchens. "Can they refuse an order they don't like?"

"That's such a Muggleborn thing to say! House-elves actually like helping wizards."

"Yeah, and I'm sure there's no magic involved in that, at all. They totally don't look like they're under the effects of a love potion or something. Like... definitely, no wizard ever cast some sort of will-binding curse on their bloodline or anything like that. Riiiight."

She crossed her arms and frowned at me. "You don't know that."

"No. But I know wizards."

"What do you mean? You're a witch yourself, you know."

"Exactly."

She had a confused look, as if expecting me to elaborate. I really, really didn't want to. Because I could understand it just too well. Virtues of my fore-memories, I guessed. Or perhaps this came out of this very life as Sylvia. Of my experiences at the foster homes, what little scraps I'd gathered about the pasts of the Residence's other kids.

I gave it a try anyway, knowing Tracey was too young, not nearly jaded enough to understand that it wasn't always the Voldemorts of the world. It wasn't always the Grindelwalds. Sometimes it was the ordinary people: the Elliots and Miles, the Mr. and Mrs. Coverdale, the Petunias and Vernons.

Sometimes it was even the Traceys and the Sylvias.

"They are called house-elves," I started. "Meaning there are, or were, some other kind of elves, no?"

"Like those crazy ones in Germany?"

"Uhm... sure, probably. But here's how I think it happened..."

And so I started explaining my little pet theory as we waited: that, say, hundreds of years ago, maybe two or three thousand years, who knows... some of those wild elves did one too many nasty things against us humans. Or maybe it was wizards themselves who started it, because really, just take a serious look at human history, will you?

So there is a war, wizards against elves. Except that elves' magic is completely and terrifyingly powerful, without many of the limitations of human magic, right?. So it wouldn't have been a cakewalk for the wizards, and at some point I could imagine them starting to get desperate. The losses mounting, things not going their way.

And then, someone comes up with the idea. Or maybe they find a dark spell in an old tome, like what Professor Duskhaven said. A binding. A grand Imperius curse, a love potion of sorts that would be inherited, that would affect an entire race of magical beings.

I could imagine how appealing that would have sounded, to people who had been fighting and had lost loved ones, or who were simply afraid of losing them and wanted to put an end to the fighting before it happened. I could see how they'd leap at it, convince themselves it was even better for the elves too, because if they could be slaved then they wouldn't have to be killed. And maybe that they'd look for a better, more permanent solution in the future.

But of course they never do, nobody does; because it's more convenient like this. And so they put it off, until some generations later the knowledge is finally lost —maybe even on purpose— and new wizards simply take their helpful dispositionfor granted. Why would you look a gift elf in the mouth, after all?

Tracey scoffed after I gave her the abridged version, rolling her eyes: "Now you're just making stuff up."

I shrugged. "Maybe? But name me any creature that exists just to help some other being at the cost of themselves. That just doesn't happen, Tracey. Not naturally."

She seemed unconvinced, which to be fair, wasn't that surprising. It's not like I had really expected to shift her entire outlook on the whole house-elves' situation within the span of a single conversation, especially since she'd been raised in the Wizarding World and she probably just took it for granted too; the way a millionaire's kid would take for granted the existence of 'the help'.

Besides, she wasn't wrong: I was making stuff up. Sure, if I had to place a bet, I'd wager my story was closer to the truth than 'they just love Wizards so much that they have to help us, tee-hee'. But it was still a tall tale without any solid evidence. And there might be other stuff I simply wasn't aware of that could also explain it.

But truth or not, at least Tracey was now looking at the little magical creatures with a thoughtful expression; so I chalked it as a win.

Not that I planned to do anything about the house-elves, or to join Hermione's little future S.P.E.W. club, if that still happened this time around. I had already way too much on my plate, thank-you-very-much, and liberating the house-elves seemed like the kind of world-altering quest that could take you years, if not a lifetime. I would have to content myself with treating them decently, and do my best to ignore the lingering sense of guilt at consuming the food they cooked and that I pretty much hadn't paid for.

In any case, the two elves were returning, all but dragging a third one along with them, each grabbing one of their arms.

I said: "Uhm... that's not the elf that I saw, sorry."

"Oh, no, no," said Dripple, shaking the other elf's arm. "This be Dizzlenob, and he knows Squeeble! Tells them, tells the studentses!"

Dizzlenob didn't look too happy at his comrades. Had they just woken him up from his nap or something? But he simply furrowed his brow and spoke in a gravelly tone: "Yes, yes... Dizzlenob knows Squeeble. He wasn't an elf of Hogwarts, he belongs to one of the professors. But they isn't here no more."

I tensed, because this was just what I had feared. But still, I had to ask, if only not to arouse Tracey's suspicions, and to give me a cover story in case I needed it later to justify how I knew what I knew. Because one thing was knowing how to find the kitchens, and another thing was knowing too much:

"Which professor?"

"Professor Quirrell," he replied, his voice bitter. "He always liked his own Squeeble better than us Hogwarts elfses. If you seen Squeeble, maybe his master forgetted something here and he was recovering it. But he is no more a Professor's elf, so he should have askeds us!"

Yep, he was recovering something all-right. And that definitely confirmed my suspicions: Quirrell had not simply disappeared into the ether thanks to Duskhaven's arrival, and his plot to steal the stone was still very much in motion. It's just that now he didn't have direct access to the castle, so he was sending a minion in his place. I imagined whatever protective spells were in place around Hogwarts prevented the undead abomination from simply barging in; but maybe elves were immune to those.

I also imagined this Squeeble had been unsuccessful so far, given the sorry state I saw him in, plus the fact there was no giant Dark Mark skull in the clouds above the castle. Better not to chance it though: "That's incredibly impolite!" I said. "You should definitely be on the lookout in case he comes again, and have a stern talking to him."

"Oh yes!" said Dripple with a savage smile. "Dripple likes stern talkings, he does! He will stern Squeeble if he sees him again!"

We started receding towards the door after that, Tracey appearing a bit confused about the whole interaction —which, to be fair, I was starting to think was simply the normal side-effect of talking to house-elves— when the realization hit me.

"Say, Plixiette. You wouldn't happen to be French, would you? I mean, your name..."

"Yes, Yes!" she said, bouncing up and down. "Plixiette was an elf at Beauxbatons before she was an elf at Hogwarts!"

"Oh, really?" I said, a grin with too many teeth splitting my face.

"Crepes?" asked Tracey.

"No," I said. "Crêpes."

She rolled her eyes and returned to her own treacle tart, the philistine. At least Daphne Greengrass seated by my other side had the good sense to eye the piece of culinary art sitting in front of me with a certain disguised envy. Parkinson was trying so hard not to look at my plate that she was in danger of permanently twisting her neck into a corkscrew.

We were at the Great Hall, and after much anticipation the Hallowe'en Feast was finally underway. Unhealthy amounts of delicious sweets —and jack-o'-lanterns— surrounded us; but I only had eyes for the love of my life, for the crêpe sucrée I had managed to extract out of Plixiette.

"Just eat it already," said Perks. "Stop being weird!"

"You are weird," I said half-heartedly. I just wanted to spend a few more seconds staring at this fallen piece of heaven, take in as much of its mouth-watering aroma as I could. Eventually I took a first bite, my hands trembling and my heart trying to escape out of my chest.

"Oh là là ! C'est incroyable !"

Zabini scoffed, because of course he did.

"It tastes of Paris!" I insisted, inhaling another bite.

"Have you even been to Paris before?" he asked.

"I was French in a previous life," I confessed distractedly, earning myself a roll of his eyes. Half the crêpe had already vanished somehow, so I tried to pace myself to make it last longer. "You know," I added. "This... this changes everything!"

"Uh-huh" said Tracey.

"It's not just the crêpes, it's all of it! Now that Plixiette knows my tastes, the sky is the limit. Begone, foul British cuisine, for the béchamel is here! Get lost, breakfast toast, you can't compete with the mighty croissant!"

"Plixiette?" asked Zabini.

"She's a house-elf," clarified Tracey.

"You can't bring your house-elf into Hogwarts!" protested Draco, two seats away but still listening on us, apparently. "I would have brought Dobby myself if I could, but my father said I wasn't allowed."

"And how can you of all people have a house-elf?" asked Pansy Parkinson, looking haughty at the 'you' in question.

"It's a Hog–" started Tracey, but she shut up when I kicked her —softly, because I wasn't a bully— under the table.

I bit another piece of my perfect desert, looked at Parkinson as I chewed it down, then simply said: "Délicieuse."

For a single moment she looked outraged, and I wondered if she'd do anything stupid. Oh, please, Pansy, please do something stupid.

She didn't, though. Her twisted expression going away under a mask of feigned indifference. Then, she turned towards Malfoy and asked, first making sure that I was still looking at her: "Say Draco, what were your plans for winter break again? It's little more than a month away now, you know."

Draco seemed to miss her little byplay, because he launched himself into a detailed explanation of how Yule Ball was celebrated at the Malfoy Manor, which caused Zabini to audibly groan, and pretty quickly lost the interest of those among us who weren't either simpletons or shameless arse-lickers.

But that reminded me of something, so I downed my crêpe and then switched seats with Tracey, ending up next to Theodore Nott. The young boy's face was serious, consuming his food while pretty much ignoring all of us. He'd quickly gotten a reputation of being aloof and acting as if everyone was beneath his notice; but unlike Zabini, I didn't think that was true in his case. I thought he was just shy. Possibly sad, too, by how he could eat sweet after sweet with no emotion at all showing on his face.

"Hey Nott," I started. He turned his head marginally, but then he returned to his desert, pretty much ignoring me.

Yeah, I could see how he'd obtained that reputation of his.

I rested my head on my hand, and simply stared at him. I could see he looking at me out the corner of his eye, now and then. It only took a couple of minutes for the awkwardness of the situation to become overbearing.

"What do you want, Sarramond?" he asked at last. "I don't want to be seen associating with you."

"No associating necessary," I assured him. "But they tell me your family knows a thing or two in matters of blood status."

"They?"

"Yeah. People. Mates."

"Your... mates." It was hard reading him. I wasn't sure if he was unbelieving, making fun of me, or simply unfamiliar with the concept of talking to people.

"I get around, you know? Well, maybe you don't, but I do get around. And that's the rumour on the grapevine. So I was wondering if your family does, in fact, have some sort of secret info on magical bloodlines, or any sort of test that I could use to–"

He turned to look at me fully. His tone was neutral: "Do you know anything at all about my family?"

"Uhm... well, I do know about the book of sacred bloodlines. And that you... your family I mean, don't like Muggleborns too much."

Zabini let out a low laugh, like the eavesdropper he was. He commented: "That's one way to put it, for sure."

Nott grabbed his plate and moved even further down the bench, almost to the very end of the communal table; I shuffled after him and said, in a lower voice: "So? Is it true then, what they say? Do you have something that could help me? I'm quite certain I have a magical origin," I half-lied, "and I'm looking into the Ministry angle for confirmation. But getting the records might take some time, so it'd be nice to have some sort of alternative to that."

"If you know about my family, then you know why I don't want you to be seen next to me. I can't help you."

"Can't or won't?"

He didn't reply, returning his gaze to the dish in front of him. I remained there, biting my lip as I thought of what to say, how to get him to do what I wanted. Because I had noticed what he hadn't said, the unvoiced implication: it was his family that wouldn't like me. Not necessarily he himself.

"You know... it would help you, and your family," I said at last. "If I've got magical blood, and you help me prove it, then I would owe you a big debt. And if I turn out to be a Muggleborn... well, then you gain respect in front of the other Dea–... eh, the other pure-bloods; because you'd be the one to expose me for good."

"My family's reputation is already flawless. We don't need more... respect."

Well, this wasn't going well. Should I... be myself? Perhaps I shouldn't.

I could do without yet another enemy.

But I could also do with his help... decisions, decisions.

"You could also lose respect, you know," I said, almost nonchalantly, placing my own arm around his shoulders. He went completely rigid, as if I had just petrified him with a spell. "Like, if... I don't know, people start seeing us sitting together at lunch and such."

His look was murderous. Oh well, too late to stop now.

"The Slytherins will know the truth, sure," I continued. "But think about the others, like the Gryffindors over there. Ron Weasley already thought Malfoy was my boyfriend just because he saw me talking to him once. So what do you think he'd say if he saw us like–"

Nott pushed my arm off his shoulders, shuffling away from me as much as he could in the limited space, his buttocks almost at the very border of the bench. "You! You can't–! I will just–!"

He was so apoplectic he couldn't finish a single sentence, just sputtering angry sounds my way. I let him calm down for a beat, giving him some space, then lowered my voice further, making sure he got just how serious I was:

"You don't have to be my ally. You don't have to be seen with me. And I will pay you for any information you give me, so it won't cost you anything. But if you won't help me, then... well, you know what they say about caged beasts, no? They lash out. If I'm going down for the crime of being a Muggleborn, why wouldn't I take you down with me; the son of a Death Eater?"

He went very, very pale. To be clear: he was still furious, but now he was also furiously pale. He looked at the other students sitting around us. Only Tracey and Zabini were paying us any attention, but I hoped our lowered voices couldn't be heard in the cacophony of the Great Hall —most of which somehow seemed to emerge entirely out of the lions' table.

"I'm– I'm neutral," he whispered.

"Then be neutral! Just give me what I need to prove my own status, and you'll benefit no matter what! That's not helping a mudblood, Nott, that's helping yourself. Even Selwyn would understand that."

He considered my words for a moment, then said: "I will send a letter, that's it. But you don't talk to me again. You don't sit next to me again. You don't–"

"Yeah, I get it. We got a deal, Nott." Then I stood up and stepped away. "Come on Tracey, let's go pester the Gryffindors!"

She doubted for a moment, but then she followed me. She also looked annoyed, and I wondered how much of the interaction she'd heard.

"It was your idea, you know," I told her, once we were a few steps removed from our house's table.

"I didn't tell you to threaten him, you nutter!" she replied sharply. So, she'd heard enough.

I gave her a helpless shrug, as if to say 'what did you expect?' But we were already close enough to the Gryffindors that I let the matter lie. I was sure she'd bring it up again once we were on our own, anyway.

The reason I wanted to confront the Gryffindors —or, more specifically, two Gryffindors in particular— was that Hermione wasn't in the Great Hall.

I hadn't been sure whether she'd be here or not. According to my fore-memories, she wasn't supposed to be. But now she had the Read-Ahead Club, so she probably wasn't feeling quite as lonely as in the original timeline. That said, the group met only once per week, and we weren't friends, not exactly; there wasn't much emotional support going on in there, just book discussions.

Tracey herself was the only friend I had in there, and she was only sort of an unofficial member: she'd been present at one of our gatherings, but had been bored so out of her mind that eventually she'd just used the time to advance her homework.

So with no actual friends, and having to deal with Ron Weasley's tact, or lack thereof, it wasn't so surprising Hermione had refused to attend the Feast after all.

The problem was that, without Quirrell here to release a troll —something I'd half-expected to happen anyway, but the Feast was already about to end with no trolls in sight— there was no reason for Harry Potter and Ron Weasley to go looking for her.

And this... this was one of those key plot elements, wasn't it? One of those whose consequences echoed into the future for years to come, like the waves on a lake's surface after a stone had dropped into it. Harry and Ron saved Hermione from the troll, and the Trio was born.

Which meant: no troll, no Trio.

I couldn't do much about the lack of trolls, but I hoped if I could make Harry see the error in his ways, he'd go look for the girl of his own volition and apologize. Would that be enough to kickstart their friendship? Who knew. But it needed to start somewhere, and subtly nudging the boys into apologizing seemed like a good first step.

"Oi, Potter!" I said as we approached the boys, loud enough that other people at their table turned to look at us, "I heard you've been bullying Granger!"

There. Subtle enough.

"W–what?"

"What's it to you?" said Ron, frowning at us as he took the lead role.

Oh, right, I was the self-serving snake to him. Had to keep appearances, couldn't look too charitable now.

"She happens to be my Potions partner, if you haven't noticed, so I've got a vested interest in her well-being."

"Then you go look for her, if you like her so much!"

I ignored Ron and focused in Harry, who was looking sort of guilty. Ron was a tough nut to crack, me being in Slytherin and all, but Harry I knew where the weak spot in his shield was. Because he'd been bullied himself, by his cousin; so I only needed to remind him of that:

"What did you say to make her cry, Harry?"

"I– I didn't say any–"

"Maybe they insulted her and laughed at her?" commented Tracey, following my lead, her arms crossed as she too stared down at the two Gryffindors in false indignation.

"They're bigger than her," I said to Tracey, "Maybe they chased her around?"

She gasped. "Do you think they would hit her?"

"You know bullies," I said with a shrug.

"We would never hit her!" protested Harry.

"But you would insult her, no?" I replied, bitter. "Why?! Maybe you think that she is less than you? That she is a freak?!"

That might have come out a bit too harsh, a bit too honest. Too many emotions about Elliot-and-Miles and my foster parents mixed in my voice, too many things that I thought were already behind me. Tracey turned marginally and looked at me with hidden curiosity.

But it seemed like the right comment to make, judging by how Harry jerked at that, his face red with shame. Ron too had gone silent, looking at his desert as if it contained the answers to the nature of the universe.

It was Harry who first stood up. His gaze went everywhere but to my face, as if he was afraid I was a legilimens myself or something. But he said: "You're right. We should apologise to her. Come on, Ron."

I believed for a moment that the red-headed boy would remain sitting, too stubborn and too reluctant to lose face to a couple of snakes. But he surprised me by giving us a curt nod of acceptance and rising up to follow Harry. They headed towards the main entrance.

I let out a breath, my muscles finally relaxing even under the curious looks Neville and the other nearby lions were giving Tracey and me. It seemed the manipulation had worked, now I just had to wait and see what fruits it bore.

"Sylvia," said Tracey in a low voice. "Were you–"

And that, of course, was when all hell broke loose.

We heard a loud screech coming from the entrance, causing most heads across the entire Great Hall to turn to look at its origin. I saw Ron and Harry pause in their steps, doubting whether to approach the large wooden doors.

Then the ghostly figure emerged through the doors as if they weren't there, floating a couple of feet above the ground. It rushed straight into the Great Hall, flying over the students and the tables and ignoring the two Gryffindors in his path. I realized the screech was coming from him, and it took me a moment to identify him as Peeves, even despite his ridiculous clothing.

Because Peeves never entered the Great Hall, not during dinner and not with all the Professors present.

"Ruuuun!" he screamed, "Run! Acromantulas! Acromantulas in Hogwarts!"

Then he pirouetted in mid-air and shot upwards, disappearing once more through the enchanted ceiling.

There was a beat of stunned silence at his announcement, before the uproar started. Shouts and voices and noises of cutlery clattering and benches dragging across the floor as dozens of students all stood up in a hurry; Professor McGonagall's orders getting lost in the cacophony.

"Prefects!" boomed Dumbledore's voice; he was doing something with his wand pressed against his throat. "Prefects, gather your students! Make sure everyone is here! Severus, Minerva, come–"

I was close enough to the entrance myself that I heard clearly how Harry said "Hermione! We need to find her!" and rushed out of the Great Hall, pushing the doors open. Ron's face was completely white, but in the end he gritted his teeth and followed in Harry's wake.

"Shit," I muttered, unsure. Because on one hand: 'Yay, Golden Trio, here we come!' but on the other hand, this wasn't a troll, it was something new: Acromantulas.

Were they more dangerous than a troll? I wasn't sure. I guessed it would depend on how many of them they would encounter: Perhaps they'd win against one acromantula. But against five? Or ten?

I had told myself I wouldn't be a hero.

That nobody could demand that of me.

But I had a strange sense of deja vu... a vague impression of something horrible hurling towards us at full speed. Something foreboding, that made the hairs in my arms stand on end. It was as if the future wasn't... certain... anymore. As if nothing was guaranteed all of a sudden. And I could see the image in my head, almost: Hermione surrounded by two of those spiders, having somehow ended up separated from the boys. Hermione, being dragged away towards the Forbidden Forest, wrapped inside a giant silk cocoon.

And then myself, alone at our Potions table. With nobody to tell me —in a bossy tone, of course— how to check for magical balance in a brewing potion, or why I should crush the ingredients with the left side of the knife rather than the right.

Alone, and in a twisted world. A broken version of the story, of the future I remembered, hopelessly ruined.

"Shit!" I repeated, letting out a tired sigh, before dashing towards the entrance myself. It seemed like the plan was for the Prefects to gather everyone together at the far side of the Great Hall and put some order there, so I had only brief instants to escape the room before the chaos cleared enough that it would become impossible to slip by.

"Wait!" shouted Tracey behind me as I pushed open the Great Hall's doors again. "What are you doing?!"

At least the corridor outside seemed clear. I turned towards her; she looked bewildered, but still decided to follow me into the rest of the castle, apparently.

"No, you stay here!" I ordered her. I wasn't planning to put even more people into danger. "I will follow those two and make sure they don't die, double back here if we run into trouble. Go tell a prefect, quick! Or better yet: a teacher!"

She gave me a confused look, a mix of relief and exasperation; then bit her lip as if she was about to say something more. But in the end she just nodded and rushed towards the rest of the students.

I crossed the door and let it shut close behind me, muting the racket from the Great Hall. I ran towards the nearest corner, behind which I'd seen a couple of dark robes disappear a mere few seconds ago. My quick steps echoed on the stone walls, no doubt attracting the attention of whatever creatures hid in the dark crevices.

I extracted my wand and held to it as if it was a lifeline, the only solid thing I could find within reach.