"...I PRESENT TO you the true Heir of Slytherin."

Once upon a morning, Luxanna strolled into the yellow painted kitchen, bleary eyed and yawning, to find her mother at the table in conversation with an unfamiliar man. 'Come, Lux, I want you to meet somebody' she had told her. The man gave Luxanna a smile and drew up a chair for her to sit on. He continued by saying that he had been yearning to meet her for years. That he was her father and that he had come to take her, and her mother home. He told her all about a far-off land named England, and the vast manor which he owned, and the famous school she would be going to once she turned eleven, while Luxanna nodded and hummed her understanding. It wasn't until after Carina had already packed their luggage that Luxanna asked 'Where are we going?'

It was much in the same manner now, as she stood rooted to the centre of the Common Room, that the implications of Selwyn's words refused to register in her mind.

Her eyes locked with Alex's—a silent sort of "What has happened?" and he returned her gaze, instead of with an explanation, by furrowing his brows in concern.

"I'm sure you're all very curious to learn how I managed to come upon this information, so I'll do you the favour of enlightening you." The glares which had previously been glued to Luxanna now shifted their focus back to Selwyn. "Those of you who read Witch Weekly probably already have an idea of what a lying, manipulative bitch Luxanna Black is. But you see, as horrible of a person as she is, I took no offence to her slanderous lies, not until I'd found out that she had been using me like a puppet for months. Naturally, I sought to expose her for it. What I found out—thanks to my brilliant informant, Maisie Spinster, who had selflessly devoted several weeks to tracking Black—was beyond even my wildest daydreams."

"Spinster?" The word tumbled out of Luxanna's mouth.

"Speak up, love, we can't hear you," Selwyn said.

"That was you? In the Chamber that day?"

Spinster gave a little wave of her fingers, a nauseating smirk playing on her lips. "Yeah, that was me...You should've been a wee bit more wary of your surroundings." The nerve to undercut this statement with an apologetic frown did not go unnoticed by Alex, whose jaw fell agape in an expression of befuddlement. This brief exchange made Luxanna's stomach twist for some unnamed reason. The same source which had apparently robbed her senses of comprehension.

"And that day at Hogsmeade..." Luxanna voiced her train of thought as it unravelled in her head, "at the dock, you warned Selwyn somehow—you let her know that Alex and I were there, watching her... You've been cooperating since the start."

Selwyn pretended not to hear her as she marched over to the board and ripped one of the photographs down, waved it around at the crowd. "I knew something was off about her from the day we arrived at Hogwarts. I think everyone here knew, but refused to do anything about it. She once threatened me with a Conjunctivitus Curse for snoring too loudly—"

"You snore?" Rowle interrupted.

"And—and she tried to burn Renza's eyes out because she thought we stole her homework. In second year—"

"I've never heard you snore."

"Shut up, Renza." Selwyn continued, "In second year when all the mutterings started, I thought she had just gone insane because nobody'd talk to her, because nobody wanted to be friends with her. Come on, I mean, who here's seen Black talking to herself at some point?"

A few tentative hands rose to shoulder height. One boy gripped his younger brother's hand and lowered it down.

"But that wasn't the truth, now was it, Black?"

Interpreting her confusion, perhaps mistakenly, for unease, Selwyn approached and pervaded Luxanna's personal space with a hand that jolted through the air and, in a mere second locked around her collar, pulling Frost away within her grasp. "Finite!" she yelled out, and white scales began to materialise from underneath her nails, from the head down to the tail which squirmed wildly in the air in protest.

"No..." Luxanna cried out, her hand reaching out in an aimless grasp.

"And this whole time I was naive enough to think that she was just muttering curses to herself!" said Selwyn with a joyous exhale.

It was only when one of the onlookers spoke up that Luxanna realised just how close they were, how close everybody was, she could feel their interest—the palpable presence of their curiosity—could taste it in the air, burning her tongue dry.

"So... you can actually talk to snakes?"

As it was with crowds, when the first courage of the herd met the influence of the rest, everyone soon followed suit. Before long, a majority of the students had begun murmuring amongst themselves, the questions flooding in with little restraint.

"If you're the heir that means you're related to Salazar himself, doesn't it?"

"Brilliant. Now the likes of Granger'll finally get what they deserve."

The room had taken on a ghostly appearance under the morning sun's stale breath. As the density of the crowd thickened, swarming in from all sides, so too did the atmosphere tighten; long shadows obscured the last remnants of light that filtered through the glass and dimmed its surroundings. A sinister tension throbbed through the Slytherin crowd once their mirth finally dissolved into caution, rendering it eerily still as students searched their friends' faces for answers to questions unasked, for fears unexpressed. Eventually, and inevitably though, they arrived at the focal point of the subject.

"You know what that means..." an older boy, closer to the edge of the crowd, announced for all to hear. "That means she's related to You Know Who."

The tension in Luxanna's spine dug itself deeper into her body. Frost had by now ceased her squirming and was hanging limply in Selwyn's hand next to her body.

"You think she'll turn up like him?" asked the girl clinging to his arm, fear mixed with wonder.

"Probably well on her way already."

The tension snapped. Flooding. As if all of a sudden it had reached a breaking point—small hands squeezed over a hose tap in the garden during summer, water cascading everywhere. Incandescence. Her hands began to tremble, a sickness in her stomach set free. She swallowed past her parched throat.

"Leave... Frost... alone."

"By Merlin, the snake's got a name! And an embarrassing one at that," exclaimed Selwyn with a shriek of laughter. The shriek subsequently turned into a pained screech as Frost sunk her teeth into the flesh of her palm. Luxanna wished that the teeth were her own. Selwyn recoiled, blood pouring down her fingers, and in her outrage raised her arm and flung Frost across the room. "It bit me, it bloody bit me!"

Luxanna searched the crowd for Frost, panic rising into her chest. Somewhere somebody shrieked, pointing their finger at the floor as they collided with the person behind them. "Snake!" cried a young girl's voice.

"You bi—" started Luxanna, closing the distance between her and Selwyn in mere seconds. She came to a halt as her body met the tip of a wand.

"Don't you dare! You have no right!" Selwyn said and dug the wood deeper into Luxanna's chest.

"This was the 'news' you had to share with your mother, wasn't it?" said Luxanna, teeth chattering from a lack of blood flow. Or from fear, or both. "Quite a bloody shock that you're Skee..."

"At least I'm not related to the Dark Lord himself!" Selwyn shouted over her, the end of Luxanna's sentence gone unheard. "Not a single paper dared to write about the truth of who you really are. All cowards, except me. Iexposed you for the treacherous, lying viper that you are. And you're going to remember that for the rest of your pitiful life while you rot behind bars in your father's stead. So go on, tell them... see who believes you."

"Tell us what?"

Luxanna opened her mouth to try to get the words out, but was quickly overshadowed by a course of questions that swept over the room, pervading her senses—what would have been the point now, anyway?

"Black, was it you who opened the Chamber of Secrets that year? Dumbledore never really explained anything to us in the end."

"Yeah, tell us Black, what happened?"

"Did you order the monster to petrify the Mudbloods?"

"Of course she did, it's Slytherin's legacy."

"Shut... up."

"That's brilliant!"

"Amazing!"

"Are you gonna do that again?"

"Yes, she ought to, and starting with our house, it could do with a bit of cleansing..." Eyes fell upon Alex.

"Shut up."

"Is that why you hang around with him? 'Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?'"

"Shut up !"

"Ooooh, prepare yourself, Dankworth, your time here's coming to a close."

"SHUT UP! Shut up, shut up, shut up. All of you! Or I SWEAR I'll make sure not a single one of you has got a tongue left to use!"

Selwyn offered an amused look, a taunting 'Please, yes, prove us right' sort of face.

Adrenaline coursing through her body, Luxanna spiralled around and pushed her way through the crowd, elbows and hands colliding with anybody in her path. Her heart pounded against her ribcage, ice cold. It did not wear off for a long time, not until Luxanna began to wonder whether perhaps it never would, whether it was her body's way of giving into madness's embrace, finally lulled into submission by a mind utterly bereft of control. It had driven her, it seemed, into the ground, shaken and bruised but alive, and for the first time wishing that she wasn't, because once the adrenaline did wear off, it took with it her last shred of morality.

There were questions to ask, choices to be made. Choices she had once made, but which had all escaped her at that moment. By the end of this day, everyone would know. Everyone. And in the face of all the years that had gone to waste in thoughtful preparation of this, Luxanna bade her mind to think sensibly, but was met only with fogged up outlines. Think. "Think," she said. "Think." Through the fog came echoes, hollowed out concepts recycled into notions of indecipherable ramblings and blank visions of distress; each thought and each idea snuffed out before it could reach the surface, like a quill tip dripping ink above the paper, reluctant to meet its surface. A plan that never was.

That was fine, she would write a different one. A better one, maybe.

It was in this state of confusion, all sense of rational thought lodged inside a limbo, that her legs carried her up several flights of stairs, past a hallway lined with Selwyn's posters, past a group of girls pointing, whispering, gawping, into a classroom where she quietly endured a lesson in Transfiguration, waiting, biding time, leg shaking furiously, Professor McGonagall tucking one of Selwyn's stray flyers between the pages of a book and ordering silence. Chair legs screeched against floorboards, parchment rustling, scratching, voices murmuring. "Silence!" Rain pattering against the window to her left, pouring onto the grounds below. Two fingertips pinching her lower lip. A flick of a page, a quick flick of her wand, an eruption of smoke and flame. Small bits of ash wafted up towards her nose. "Miss Black!" The fingers drew blood. Somewhere in the distance, a bell rang, signalling the end of the exercise. Somewhere even farther away, a professor called out her name.

During that space that stretched in between Luxanna fell victim to what she never intended to do.

The rumours had reached him before she reached the door. Professor Moody mustered a resigned smirk, setting down the flyer which Selwyn had just handed him on the desk before him. The classroom was teeming with people, all leaning forward in their chairs to watch the scene they knew ought to unfold, to finally attain proof of that which had so long been denied them. Moody ordered them out, but they only got as far as the door frame before they began to pool there like a clump of maggots drawn to rotting meat. After taking a moment to collect herself, Luxanna marched in with an empty gaze; not yet daring to meet his eyes. Perhaps it'd be easier that way, she reasoned, to take somebody's life.

Moody rose from his desk, and in a few short strides he was in front of her, bending down slightly, his eyes travelling up her frame and coming to rest on her face. A silent understanding lingered in the tight space between them. Life and death. His mission was to the Dark Lord. Hers, to her father. There was respect to be had there, surely. Respect was worth something in her father's world. She wondered briefly how he had done it—how he had been ordered to do it. Quickly and painlessly? Torn from limb to limb, maimed beyond recognition? The Unforgivable Curse? Luxanna knew that he had killed before, could sense it from their very first meeting, when she was just six and he a shadow which sat at her kitchen table licking over the next page of a newspaper. In some long forgone daydream she had chosen to forfeit this truth in pursuit of innocence. At what point do your regrets start to gain on you, the harm begin to outweigh the opportunity, and was it disrespectful not to look a man in the eyes when murdering him?

Her hand held firm as she bent the wooden handle of her wand, held it delicately in her grasp, felt the coarse cordage beneath her fingertips. An instrument of life-taking. Moody leant in and whispered close to her ear, "It changes you in ways you cannot yet conceive. One day, once you've earned the right to that change, I will be there waiting for you."

Without further ado Luxanna raised her hand and uttered a set of words which she would remember only hours later, as she lay strapped to a hospital bed, gazing blankly at the ceiling as the reality of the day's events unfurled behind her burning eyelids.

She knew that she had lost, the pain that steadily filled her limbs was evidence of that. Her spine had arched backwards in response to the burning heat that surged through her bones. The magic felt foreign and unfamiliar, acidic as it pierced the gaps between her ribs and seared its mark into her. Her palms raged to clutch at the source of pain under the bindings which were keeping them in place, etching red circles into her wrists—cursed to writhe unceasingly without reprieve. Breath filled her lungs faster than her body could expel it, leaving her gasping for air. A bead of sweat dripped down her neck, tickled by hair. Perhaps she always lacked the courage to do it, the conviction necessary to bring someone else to their knees. Better people might have been glad for that.

When she next awoke, it was dark. The first ghosts of daylight sought refuge behind the horizon, unwilling to contend with the burgeoning storm clouds in the sky. Her hand reached to wipe the sweat off her forehead, halting in mid air as the leather strap strained against the pull.

Luxanna sighed and dropped her head back down to the pillow. Oddly enough, the pain, the searing agony that had lanced through her body just hours prior had been reduced to a dull throb; whatever curse had been set on her must have run its course. Once her pulse slowed, reassured that it no longer had to fight for survival, Luxanna let her eyes wander along the empty room as she pieced fragments of her memory together into a vague semblance of reality. Somebody had carried her here, to the Hospital Wing, that much was sure. Somebody had also strapped her to the bed, most likely at the behest of the faculty. Speaking of which, where were they? Where was everyone? The irony of the situation almost rivalled the logic behind it; they had reprimanded her like some crazed animal when the weight of her sins was already grievous enough to outweigh the consequences of a murder attempt. How long until Moody delivered the news to his master? How long, coincidentally, until it also reached Cepheus?

She needed answers.

"Luksss... Luksss..."

Luxanna straightened up in the bed, scouting the darkness for the source of the noise. "Frost? Where are you?"

Frost emerged from within the drain of a sink beside her, barely visible in the night's gloom as she slithered up its white surface. "Frost! Oh, thank Merlin, you have to help me. Quick, before somebody comes. Loosen the straps, I have to warn my father."

"Lukss, this isn't good," Frost said, coiling around the bed frame. "You tried to attack a professor, that's a seriousss crime. I don't know what you were thinking."

"A dark wizard in disguise, you mean?"

"You'll have a difficult time proving that, especially in the state that you're in..."

"I have to do something! I broke the deal, Frost, he's out to get my father."

"Not quite," said Frost, dragging out the words. Luxanna leant in as much as she was able to, and listened to Frost's argument with furrowed brows. "The deal wass that you do not expose his identity, and you attempting to kill him doesn't exactly qualify as sssuch. His cover up story is that he was acting in his capacity as an Auror to detain what was deemed a dangerouss individual. Say what you will about dark wizards, but men like him keep to a certain code of honour, no matter how immoral that code might be. He still needss you to keep your end of the bargain as much as you do hisss."

"Him not informing his master of what he learnt about me isn't part of that bargain, though."

"Exactly. And if Voldemort learns the truth, you will become his prime target. We prepared for this, you and I... I jussst... wish it hadn't come to it so soon. Lissten to me very carefully... There is nothing you alone can do to fix thisss. I have a plan, but you mussst go and speak to the Headmaster."

"That's not happening."

"You have no choice."

"No, I never do, do I?"

"Luksss..."

"Frost. Walking into Professor Dumbledore's office would be like walking into my own grave. He won't see reason on this, and why should he? I wouldn't either, if I were him. I'm an enemy of the ministry now, don't you understand? Nobody is going to believe me."

"I understand it far better than you do, and that is why you musst trussst me."

"I can't..." Luxanna all but pleaded.

"So be it," said Frost after a moment of silent reflection. "Stay here then."

"No, no, no, wait!" Luxanna tried to reach out for her, the bed once again creaking from the tug of her bindings. "Wait. Alright. I'll... I'll speak to him, just don't leave me here. Please."

She didn't know whether that had been a lie or not. The severity of her current predicament outweighed the decision of whether or not to heed Frost's advice. Frost had apparently believed her, as she circled back around and latched around the clasps, loosening them until Luxanna was able to shake her wrist free. "Come here," she said with a small smile, offering her palm for Frost to climb forth. Once her right hand was free, Luxanna unhooked the other, and, getting to her feet, she quickly began to scour the room for her wand. A quick look under the mattress and in the bedside table yielded no results, so she moved towards the back of the hospital in a haste and finally managed to locate it in a pile of folded robes.

"Frost..." She hesitated at the threshold of the great wooden doors, hand on the handle. "Do you think I could have done it? Killed him?"

It was simple to submit to the most logical explanation: If she had been capable of having done it, then she would have. Moody had said something strange, though, something she didn't quite fully comprehend yet. It appeared that he had tapped into a deeply rooted fear of hers; the idea that perhaps it had been a subconscious part of her being, rather than the practical one which carried out her actions, that had led her to make that decision.

"If we are to dissect every piece of our psyche in search of itss role in an action, we would before long be driven to madnesss," Frost answered cryptically. "It is best not to go down that road, for it is a road filled with more dead ends than tangible conclusionsss."

Frost's words did not soothe her. On the contrary, they gave her even more reasons to doubt herself than anything else, and so Luxanna let the matter drop, finding that, perhaps, this was not a subject she wanted to dissect at all; it ought to be stored and locked away with all other such sentiments as per habit—a habit which she had grown quite comfortable with over the years. Yes, it was best not to dwell on it at all, she concluded reluctantly. Luxanna made it two steps into the corridor when her foot collided with something solid, and a short gasp escaped her lips. As much as she had hoped, prayed, in the depths of her mind for this to be avoided, she knew it was inevitable that she run into him sooner or later.

Her pulse settled, and she whispered, "Alex?"

"Lux..."

"What are you doing here?" Peering down at the pitiful sight before her—a blanket and a pillow on the cold floor, deep shadows under his eyes—she prayed silently: Don't say you slept here... Don't say you...

"I slept here. I was waiting for you," he began speaking in a constrained voice as he slowly got to his feet. "They wouldn't let me in, Lux, it's chaos, everyone's gone completely mad, I was so w..."

No, she couldn't do it, she realised with a sinking sensation in her gut. Luxanna moved to brush past him before the dreaded words that clung to his tongue ever got the chance to meet air, but Alex's hand caught her wrist, stubbornly clinging to her like a child, warm fingers clutched around her skin.

"Wait, wait, listen!"

"Let go of me, Alex," demanded Luxanna, lips set in a firm line. She was tired. So tired, and so sick of it all. Was it not enough, that she had already torn through half of her adolescence alone, letting bitterness seep into every inch of her body until it had grown roots and overtook even her deepest beliefs? Must it now return to sever her from her last remaining connection to happiness as well?

Couldn't have Moody just finished the job?

"Just listen to me, please." He sighed. "It doesn't matter what they said about you. Not to me, at least. Even if... even if it's all true..."

"Alex."

"...even if you thought of... doing some of those things in the past, I get it. Look, there's got to be something we can do to fix this. Antonio and I... we... told people that it's because you're Italian that you can speak—"

"Alex!" yelled Luxanna, her breath quickening, her pulse throbbing. "I don't want to hear it," she said firmly. " I don't care."

He released her arm and she turned around to face him.

"I'm just trying to help," he said. "If there's anything I can do, just..."

"Stop."

Alex raised his eyebrows.

"Stop that. I don't want your help."

"But I..."

"I never needed your help. You've been practically useless to me."

And there it was. That unspoken admission of her weakness, that crack, small and tiny as it was, in her resolve. It had demanded entry since the first time she had laid her eyes on Alex, and had now barged its way in, sat itself on her throne and commanded her how to act. A primitive part of her rebelled at this newfound sense of inadequacy, letting loose a feral scream of indignation. It despised the fact that such little encouragement was required to push her to new limits, yet all at once knew that it was futile to even attempt to fight it, to have ever attempted to fight it, and instead allowed it free reign to enslave her senses and to freely roam her veins, like poison.

"But—"

"But, but, but!" Luxanna mocked, her chest swelling with a disgusting pride. "You think there's anything that you, of all people, can do to remedy this? Aren't you bloody precious, Alex, always wanting to help, always, always, trying your best, always so sweet and kind, loyal like a dog, Merlin, your parents must adore you!" The words left her mouth in one, singular exhale, rendering her breathless and panting. "You try so hard, yet you never actually do anything useful, do you? Ugh, find yourself some real friends."

"I thought you and I were friends."

"You thought wrong," she replied. The poison ran high within her now, invading every inch, every crevice of her body, and robbing her blind with relief. "I don't do friends, Alex. I don't need them and I don't want them. I do better without them. And I'd do even better without some halfwit Mudblood chasing me around, wagging his tail at the sight of me. You do realise I only ever kept you around out of pity, right? There might have been a time where I wondered, maybe even hoped, that you'd amount to something eventually, but you've proved me wrong time after time after time. It's as if you made it your life's mission to be utterly useless. I'm sick of fighting your battles. I'm done. I'm leaving this place and you'd be smart to do the same, because once I'm gone there'll be no more skirts for you to hide behind, nobody to care, to take pity on you—because one day, Alex, one day somebody stronger than you, somebody smarter than you, who'll be as equally disgusted with you as I am right now, is going to pull a convenient little stunt on you that'll undoubtedly get you killed, just like it did your Muggle sister."

She surveyed his expression as she spoke, as his eyes watered and his chin began to tremble, as his fingers twirled around a toy in his pocket, his meek little fantasy crushed, and committed every frame to memory.

"Cry, why don't you? That's about the only thing you're good at."

And he did cry, a few silent tears running down his reddened cheeks down from his eyes which now stared at her as if they had never quite seen her before, wide with disbelief. His lips, however, remained drawn in a thin line, either out of anger or from the effort of restraining a sob, the latter at least preferable to her. Watching him fight it made the poison in her blood run all the more fiercer.

"If that's true," he said, pausing for breath, "then you could have had the courage to tell me so in the beginning."

"You're too weak and fragile to comprehend it," Luxanna bit back.

"You're the one who's weak, Luxanna, that's why you push people away, because you can't handle anybody besides yourself, because you're so self absorbed that you don't stop to consider the world around you."

"Is that so?"

"Yeah, you think you're the only one in the right, that everything people say about you is some convoluted lie made to spite you, as if anybody actually cares about you enough to hate you that much."

"Great, I hope they don't. I hope they've all let their guards down already, it'll make my job here easier."

"See? That's exactly it. You'd rather play into this fantasy that you're some wicked, powerful villain than admit that you're unimportant."

"Goodbye, Alex."