Severus Snape stood right by the main door, dressed in his usual wizarding garb. His long, draping dark robes contrasted absurdly with the foyer's suburban decoration: the little table with the umbrella stand next to it, the framed pictures of the Residence's previous guests that had already graduated, or the cork noticeboard with pinned post-it notes of different colours. And in the middle of it all, this big, human-sized bat looking around with endless disdain, standing ramrod straight as if afraid he'd catch the Muggles if he came into contact with any of the exposed surfaces.

I joined him, grinning widely as I said: "Hello Professor! Uhm... isn't that a violation of the Statute of Secrecy? I mean, the part about the dressing guidelines?"

He glared at me. "Silence, girl. Now, let's go."

"Go where?"

"To Diagon Alley... obviously. To purchase your new coursebooks. Or have you already forgotten everything to do with your schooling?"

Right. I might have forgotten how much of a git he was, actually.

"Oh, it's just... I was expecting McGonagall, like last year."

His teeth were almost grinding together as he explained: "Professor McGonagall was adamant that since you were —regretfully— sorted into my house, it now falls to me to escort you. Now go and bring your trunk; quickly."

"Sure. But... I need to get dressed first."

A sudden, shrill voice coming from the door to the right exploded: "Who are you?! Explain yourself at once! What are you doing here–?!"

"Confundo," said Snape in a bored tone, waving his wand in the Giraffe's general direction without even looking. The woman gaped at him and opened her mouth like a fish, but without uttering any more words —as if she'd suddenly forgotten what she was about to say— before turning around and retreating back towards her office. Snape then said back to me: "You are already... dressed."

"Do you really want to walk next to me wearing this, in Diagon Alley... sir?"

He seemed to realise for the first time just what it was that I was wearing: my black T-shirt depicted a witch... or more accurately: the Muggle interpretation of a witch; which is to say: a hag. With a huge nose, pale green skin and riding a broom in front of a full moon. The text underneath read: 'Feelin' Witchy!'

I had of course gravitated straight towards it the moment I'd first glimpsed it at the thrift shop, a few weeks ago while we were renovating my wardrobe. Its ironic pull had been simply too strong to resist.

Snape took an incredulous look at it, closed his eyes as if counting to ten, then aimed his wand at the stairs going up and grumbled: "Go. Get. Changed."

I didn't have to be asked twice, quickly rushing upstairs, dragging my trunk out from under my bed, and putting my nice turquoise weekend robes on. I also removed the two little forbidden vials I still kept inside the trunk, hid them deep into my knickers drawer; lastly I extracted my wand, too, placing it in my pocket where it belonged. After that I started dragging the whole heavy trunk towards the stairs, reconsidered for a moment, and cast a quick 'Leviosa' on it. With no Astrid around —she was outside— and Snape shooting spells left and right, I'd figured I'd be safe from the trace for once.

And besides, casting a spell again felt... invigorating. Like I was really going back to the wizarding world, in style.

Of course, Snape frowned at me when he saw me descend with the trunk hovering after me. But as he didn't comment on it, it seemed I was indeed correct that it wouldn't be an issue. He shrunk the trunk without a word until it resembled a piece of doll-house furniture that he then placed inside his own pocket. He must have cleared the use of magic with the Ministry or something along those lines... perks of being a Hogwarts professor and in the confidence of both Dumbledore and well-connected families such as the Malfoys, I guessed.

He reached for my arm, and before I had any time to react or say any words, he spun; and then my whole body was already being violently compressed and twisted around, a sickening deluge of motion and sound hitting me like the front wave of a tsunami.

The moment I felt solid ground beneath my feet back again I took a step away from my traitorous Head of House and promptly released my breakfast all over the cobblestones. I blinked once, twice, and realised we were now smack in the middle of busy Diagon Alley. And a middle-aged witch dressed in elegant golden robes was looking at me with disgust written all across her face, maybe because I'd just made a puddle of sick appear right in front of her.

I was too weak to apologise, and Snape didn't seem to mind it too much either, as he simply vanished the puddle and started dragging me down the street and towards one of the shops nearby; not giving me anytime to recuperate from the unexpected bout of apparating.

Not that he needed me to, though. I realised that we had entered the apothecary right as he was marching us straight to the counter-top, ignoring the two teenagers already waiting in line to pay for the little packages they carried under their arms —they both did a double take at realising who exactly it was that had just jumped the queue, then quickly decided to make themselves scarce.

Snape spoke to the shop attendant in a commanding tone: "A second-year standard ingredients kit, with double the amount of belladonna and a heat-proofed stirring stick..." he then eyed me for a beat and added: "... and a set of crystal vials."

The attendant nodded quickly and went to the back room. Meanwhile I had recuperated enough to say: "I already have vials, McGonagall bought them the year before."

"After what you used them for," replied Snape with barely constrained fury, "it would be... unwise to allow you to keep using those. You will dispose of them, and use these new ones from now on. I do hope that we won't have to purchase a new set for you come next year."

I gave him an innocent, confused-looking shrug that he didn't buy for even a second. And after I'd placed the new materials into my trunk —Snape knew better than to open it himself— the same situation repeated itself when we entered the next shop. Wiseacre's Wizarding Equipment was the same place where I had found my sunglasses last year, and the professor was quick to warn me to keep my hands inside my pockets.

"This shop is a trustworthy supplier of Hogwarts," he explained after asking for the astronomical charts I'd need this year. "It wouldn't do to have them think our students to be nothing but thieves, would it?"

"No," I agreed, as if the comment was purely theoretical. "I guess not."

But that reminded me that I was still to pay my debt here —except that to do that, I first needed Galleons. The shape of a plan started forming in my head, and it coalesced a while later when we reached Flourish and Blotts and I saw the announcement placed on the front window.

"Gilderoy Lockhart will be signing books here?" I asked, reading aloud and pretending ignorance. "Looks famous; who is he?"

"A charlatan," spat Snape, pushing into the book shop and grabbing the closest stack of Lockhart books. "... and your new Professor of Defence Against the Dark Arts, for reasons that elude me."

His tone told me that his being passed over for becoming the new Defence professor in favour of Lockhart of all people was probably a sore point for him, so I abstained from making any witty comments, focusing instead in committing into memory the date of when Lockhart was meant to do his little book signing in Diagon Alley. But I did speak aloud again when I saw Snape reaching for the second volume of 'The Standard Book of Spells'.

"I already have that one," I said. "But could I get the third one in the series instead? I'm ahead in Charms."

He quirked an eyebrow, but dropped the book without comment and grabbed the one for the third-years instead.

I saw my opportunity there and added: "And... perhaps some other book for Defence too? Professor Duskhaven recommended me some–"

"The Ministry's fund is already paying for seven books on Defence Against the Dark Arts for you this year," he interrupted me in a chilly tone. "Certainly no student would find that to be... insufficient."

Right. Not talking about the Lockhart thing. Or Defence. Got it.

I tried to get him to buy me a fiction book —like last year with McGonagall. The second one in the Talking Teapot series, in fact: 'A Very Venomous Vase'. The first volume in the series had turned out to be surprisingly well written, managing to keep the mystery of who had transfigured the victim into a teapot until the very end —it had been her lover, it turned out. Yes, the same one that was supposed to have been dead all along, but had only been faking it. But a dismissive look at the book by Snape was everything I needed to realise that it would never fly.

And speaking of flying:

"Like last year, the school will provide you with a broomstick for your lessons," he declared after I inquired about that particular topic. "And from what I've seen of your skills, you certainly aren't at risk of being admitted into our Quidditch team anytime soon. So no, we won't need to purchase any brooms today."

"What about an owl, then?"

He let out an angry breath. "The school–"

"–has owls, I know, I know," I said, raising my hands as if trying to calm a dangerous beast. "But I can't use those when I'm at the Residence- I always need to wait for either Davis or Greengrass to send their own owls first, if I want to send them any letters."

"And as you are already in contact with them... I fail to see the need for you to have your own owl."

"Yes, but I'm in contact only with them. If I had an owl–"

"If you had an owl... you would use it to talk to... who, exactly? Miss Granger, perhaps? Famous Mr. Potter? Forget about it!"

Wait, what?

What the hell? Where had that come from?

Was this the reason he was being so short to me? Not that he'd ever been friendly, but... did he see me in Potions with Granger, saw us talking like normal people those last few weeks after the events with the Stone, and figured I had become the friend of the Golden Trio or something along those lines?

"It was you who made us sit together in Potions... sir," I reminded him, even though I already knew it was the absolute worst thing to say.

"There will be no owls," he sentenced after that, his sneer savage. "No cats or toads, either. No broomsticks, no absurd mystery books, no joke products, no new robes, no–"

"Wait! But I need new clothes!"

He paused for a moment. "What for? Your school robes have resizing charms woven into them, as do the ones you're wearing now. They will last you for the upcoming year."

Oh my God, really?

"I can't just go back wearing the exact same things than last year!" I replied, stating the evident. "Maybe boys can, but girls don't work like that! Everyone will think that I am–"

His eyes widened in an expression of mild surprise. "That you are... what, exactly? An orphan raised by Muggles, perhaps? You foolish girl; are you trying to pass as a pure-blood? Think for once! It won't matter how many robes you own, when everybody in our house will be able to tell at a glance that you got them from... Madam Malkin's."

"What's wrong with Madam Malkin's?" I asked, crossing my arms and sounding petulant to even my own ears. "Everyone gets their robes there!"

He replied to that by pulling slightly on a loose thread sticking out of my left sleeve. "Their Hogwarts ones, yes; but only because that particular shop is the school's official provider. One that was chosen because of its... lower-end prices. Did you really think that was where the Greengrasses purchase their own 'weekend' robes? The Parkinsons? The Malfoys?"

I shook my head, clenching my jaw so forcefully it hurt. "It doesn't matter! That's... there's no reason I can't... I should do my best to keep up, to have a good appearance regardless of–!"

"They have vaults filled to the brim with gold, Sarramond," he said evenly. "You can't keep up, no matter how hard you try. And the quickest you learn that, the fastest you will be able to focus instead on the things where you do have a chance to compete... Duelling, perhaps, in your case."

Surprisingly, he didn't sound cruel when he said that. Instead it felt... brutally honest, like he was passing down a bitter lesson he'd had to learn himself when he was my age or something. I refused to look back at him, my gaze downcast and my fists clenched as he led me without more discussions to the next stop in our shopping trip, to buy ink and parchment replacements.

Fortunately that was the last shop in our lightning visit to the shopping district, and faster than you could say 'Apparate' we were back at the Residence's entrance. I staggered a couple feet away, thankfully managing not to vomit again —most likely because I had already emptied my stomach before— and I heard the loud crack that signalled Snape leaving me alone without saying even a word of goodbye. I turned to see he had at least grown my trunk back into its usual size, leaving it in the middle of the foyer.

Then, I realized that with him gone the trace would be back in effect, and so I couldn't simply cast another levitation charm on it. I let out a deep groan, and started dragging the heavy piece of luggage towards the stairs to the best of my ability.

I was saved by Astrid and Kenneth, who chose that moment to come back indoors, maybe attracted by the very noise of Snape leaving.

"Sylvia?" asked Astrid, eyeing the robes I was wearing, then the trunk. She frowned. "You were gone?"

"Yeah. Just got back from shopping for my school supplies... hey, would you help me carry this thing upstairs?" I looked at Kenneth. "You are a boy; you are pretty much obliged to, you know."

Astrid asked: "But can't you just...?" then she snapped her mouth closed, her eyes wide as she looked at the boy next to us.

"Not allowed," I clarified. Kenneth looked confused between the two of us, but when neither of us volunteered any explanations, he simply reached for one of my trunk's handles.

With some effort we managed to climb the stairs with the dead weight shared between the three of us, then drag it back under my bed at last.

"Why... why don't you use a normal suitcase?" asked Kenneth afterwards, leaning on the wall to recover his breath. "And why are you wearing a... a Victorian dress?"

"Because my school can be old-fashioned to the point of stupidity about some things," I confessed with a sigh. It was just like with the bloody quills: when I'd asked about the reason we used them, back at one of the meetings of the Read-Ahead Club, Susan Bones had gone off with the typical wizarding explanation about how quills were simply so much easier to enchant and transfigure than pens.

Hermione had been quick to poke holes into that theory: you could enchant a Muggle pen as easily —or complicatedly— as any quill. And while sure, the transfiguration angle was indeed true... just... how often did you find yourself actually needing to transfigure a quill, really? Certainly the benefits of not having to deal with the hassle of ink bottles were worth that tradeoff.

I had remained silent then, but quickly realised that all those excuses the children from wizarding backgrounds gave us were... pure codswallop, to be honest. And what the true, unvoiced reason must be: that we weren't allowed Muggle pens because they were made by Muggles.

It was a sort of cultural superiority complex, pervasive to wizarding society and that you could also see in the widespread use of trunks, or parchment. Things that pretty much required magic to not be huge pains in the arse, and that justified an unwillingness to acknowledge that some Muggle stuff was actually better; coupled by the ever-present fear of slow encroachment, of the loss of their own cultural identity to that of the Muggles.

Those emotions weren't restricted to the pure-blood families, just watered down in the rest. And they were the very same emotions that caused all those issues when they manifested in their darkest shades: as prejudice and hate against Muggleborns; and that Voldemort had used —and would use again— to fuel his war.

So yeah, Kenneth's simple question had a... very complicated answer, indeed.

But then it was time for lunch, and after that both Kenneth and Astrid remained indoors and watching the telly while I spent my afternoon lazing around in the garden with my new Charms book. I didn't pay much attention when I didn't see Astrid at our living room once the sun started its descent and I went back into the house, but I started to worry when dinnertime rolled in and Gary —who had recovered by then from his spot of mental confusion— mentioned that the girl had stayed at our room because apparently she wasn't feeling that well.

There was a sense of unease that started then to grow inside me, and that had me rushing upstairs the moment I'd finished wolfing down my baked salmon and chips, ignoring the Giraffe's disapproving tut.

I found Astrid sitting on her bed, with puffy tear-streaked red eyes, and covered up to her chin in her old blanket. The very same blanket that I had seen no trace of during the entire summer.

Uh-oh.

"Astrid?" I asked, calling her attention. But with no effect, because her gaze was lost in the night sky visible through our room's only window. "Hey, chipmunk? Are you good?"

She nodded, shakily, her lip trembling. Then she sniffed.

I bit my own lip, entering the room fully and approaching her.

"Uhm... are you sure? Because..."

My words trailed out when I saw that my trunk was poking slightly out from under my bed. We... hadn't left it like that, I was sure. I looked at it, then back at Astrid, catching her right in the motion of averting her eyes.

I took a quick step forwards, grabbed Astrid's blanket and pulled it away, gasping at the sight that welcomed me.

Her fingers in both hands looked like oversized, boneless sausages; they were more than twice their usual size, with their skin completely covered in red, furious blisters.

"Fuck, Astrid! Why would you try to open my trunk?!"

I quickly closed the door behind me, then started pacing the limited confines of our room, one hand to my forehead as I thought furiously on what to do now. On her bed, Astrid was stammering an apology:

"I– I'm sorry. I just– I wanted to see if– if there were more monsters in that book."

Right. I knew a weak excuse when it stared me in the face, and I was certain her sudden interest in my trunk had nothing to do with the book on magical creatures. Or not entirely, at least. Rather, it had probably been triggered by her seeing me dressed in my weird —to her— garments, and then helping me carry my trunk obviously full of mysterious, forbidden goodies.

But I could understand how that must have prompted her curiosity, so I couldn't really blame her for it. And yeah, sure, perhaps all my tales about just how good of a thief I was had had the unfortunate side-effect of loosening her own morals. Hindsight and all that.

Not that the why of it was of any relevance, really. Not right now.

"Bloody hell, Astrid," I muttered, trying to focus again on what my next steps should be.

She sniffed. "I'm sorry!"

"Bloody hell... Okay, let me see those hands again," I said, taking a closer look. "Oh, shit... bloody hell."

The first option was to simply... do nothing. I couldn't do any magic with the trace active, and I didn't have any potions that could help here. But the enchantments on my trunk's latch weren't any sort of dark magic, and shouldn't be strong enough to cause any serious or permanent damage. It's not like the Jelly-Finger curse in particular had made her bones disappear either —it just caused them to become... soft and gelatinous. Its effects should vanish on their own after a few hours, maybe one or two days at most.

The Furnunculus curse was trickier. New boils would stop appearing as soon as its effects dissipated, sure, but the existing ones wouldn't just go away. They'd need time to heal on their own, just like any non-magical injury did. But having only access to Muggle healing, and with the amount of them already covering Astrid's hands, she was looking at a few very painful days ahead, maybe longer. There was no way we'd be able to hide that from the staff, either.

And that was if they didn't scar, because there was a worrying thing about this all: her fingers should have the consistency of jelly, sure, and have pimples on them... but what I was seeing in front of me went way beyond that. There was nothing in the curses I'd used that should have caused her hands to swell like they had, or for the boils to break into blisters.

But I knew sometimes spells could have unexpected side-effects when combined, the results being somehow greater than the sum of the parts. Was that what was happening here? I didn't know, but I was starting to think that, should her hands remain untreated —or treated only with Muggle medicine, which in wizarding eyes pretty much amounted to the same thing— we might be looking at some permanent damage here, after all. I wasn't that sure they'd heal cleanly at all.

I let out a deep sigh, closing my eyes and hitting the wall softly with the back of my head, then letting myself slide down until I was sitting on the carpeted floor.

Shit.

Fine; leaving them untreated wasn't an option. What then?

I shook my head. Well, I couldn't do magic on my own; which meant I'd need some outside help. The first option that came to mind was the apothecary I'd visited earlier in the day with Snape: they'd probably have a stock of boil cure potion that could help fix the main issue here. But I discarded the thought as soon as it came, as it was already late enough that I doubted they'd be open anymore. And at the rate new boils kept visibly popping up on her hands, I just didn't want to wait until tomorrow morning.

Although... I had a certain key that could perhaps make waiting for the shop to open... unnecessary.

But there must be a better option here, right? One that wouldn't involve us committing grand larceny. I thought of reaching out for Tracey —who was by now back in Britain— and ask her to ask her family for help. But since Snape had refused to buy me an owl, and I had no Floo, I simply couldn't contact anybody at all in the wizarding world.

Maybe I could reach Hogwarts through the Giraffe? If Dumbledore had thought of having her keep an eye on me, it'd be possible he'd left her with some means of communication. But if so, it would probably be of the letter variety, and so too slow. I didn't see the Headmaster using a Muggle phone. Besides, involving Dumbledore —or any other magical high ranking official for that matter— risked Astrid ending up obliviated when the dust settled.

I cursed under my breath, hit the floor with my fist, then stood up and opened my trunk with an angry kick to its latch. I started digging through its contents under Astrid's startled gaze.

"Right," I said at last, as I extracted a bunch of my clothes and let them fall all over her bed. "Let's get dressed; we're going to the hospital."

"But I'm already dressed."

"Not like that," I said as I spread the outfit I wanted her to wear: my fairy pyjamas and my dressing gown. "This is a... a special kind of hospital; for people like me, you know."

"They're– they're moving!"

"Exactly. We just can't have you looking like a Muggle, right?"

I mean, we could; but this plan of mine would go much smoother if that wasn't everyone's first impression of her.

"What's a Muggle?" she asked, her eyes still glued to the animated stamps.

I turned to retrieve my wand, along with the same robes I'd worn myself during my earlier visit to Diagon Alley. "Oh... it's just, someone who doesn't have any... someone without..."

"Without powers... Like me, you mean."

She let her head hang low, clutching her blanket the best her swollen hands allowed. I sighed and rested my own hand on her shoulder.

"Hey, hey... there's nothing bad in that!" I said, trying my best to sound chipper when in truth I was feeling nothing but panicked myself. "Now, put these pyjamas on, quickly. The sooner we leave, the sooner someone will take a look at those hands."

She nodded weakly, then said: "I'm going to need help... I can't... I can't get dressed on my own."

"Oh, right! Of course! Don't worry about that. Let's start with the bottom half..."

It took us more than five minutes to get her into the pyjamas, something that under normal circumstances should have taken no longer than a few seconds. But her oversized hands kept getting stuck in the sleeves, her fingers bending all the way back; and the very brush of the fabric on her over-sensitive skin had her biting her bottom lip and almost crying in pain.

But in the end, we succeeded. The pyjamas were an inch too large on her, but the enchantments soon triggered and shrunk them down to the appropriate size, the stamped fairies staring at Astrid's hands with horrified eyes as they flew across her body. I quickly covered the girl in the dressing gown, not caring about getting her hands through the sleeves this time; and then rushed to get changed myself into my own robes, and put my wand and all my meagre remaining money into my pockets.

"Right. You're going to see a lot of crazy stuff, but there's just one very important thing to remember, Astrid," I said, squatting down in front of her to tie down her trainer's shoelaces. "If anyone asks, you're my sister."

"What?"

"Yes. If anyone asks your name, you are 'Astrid Sarramond'. Everything else can be the same: we live here with the Giraffe and the other Muggles, you go to your same school... but just remember this: you are my sister. Got it?"

"Yes. But... but why do I–?"

"Because if they think you're just some Muggle girl, they'll have to tell the government people I told you about who keep the secret hidden," I replied quickly, to her growing horror. "But there's a provision in the Statute of Secrecy for immediate family members; so if they buy that we are sisters, you get to keep your memories."

I spent a few more moments tiding up the room a little and placing our pillows inside our respective beds, to give the impression that we'd chosen to go to bed early; just on the off-chance someone happened to open the door looking for us.

Astrid said: "Can't we just go to a... a normal hospital? Why do I need to go to that one?"

"Because... this isn't a normal injury, chipmunk. And besides, I'm sure they must have people in Muggle hospitals too, to keep an eye out for just this kind of thing; so it wouldn't help. You ready?"

She nodded, standing up on two wobbly legs. I signalled her to be quiet, and opened the room's door slowly. The outside hall was empty and dark already, and we descended the stairs as quickly as we dared. There was some noise of adults talking coming from the kitchen area, but the door to the foyer was closed and so nobody saw us walk all the way up to the Residence's front door.

The front door was usually locked tight during the night, but that didn't mean much when I could simply use my Skeleton key. I unlatched it and pushed it open slowly, slipping to the fresh air of the street outside, followed by Astrid.

These were the most critical moments, as we were pretty much in plain sight of both the house's windows and any traffic that happened to pass through the residential street, and whose driver might wonder just what in the world two prepubescent girls were doing alone and outside at night. But while I could hear the noise of cars driving nearby, our own street was thankfully deserted, and I quickly guided Astrid along the pavement until we were away from the building and hidden from prying eyes under the lush branches of a nearby, large oak tree. Then, I took a well-deserved breath.

I took my wand out and turned to Astrid, who at least wasn't crying anymore, and who looked at the dark stick of wood with curiosity.

"Remember, you're my sister," I said once more. When she nodded, I added: "And one more thing... it's not superpowers, Astrid. It's magic."

I then took a step towards the kerb as I raised my wand. I wasn't intentionally aiming at theatrics —it just came naturally— but I had the intrusive thought that I'd certainly lose a lot of cool points in the younger girl's eyes should nothing happen, and it wasn't like I'd ever done this thing bef–

BANG!