"LUKSSS THAT TRIFLE cup is calling my name, bring it here!" hissed Frost beside her plate filled with toast. Although she could not see the snake, Luxanna knew that she was there on the table, eyeing every dish Hogwarts had to offer that morning. Luxanna placed the trifle next to Frost, who immediately jumped in head first. The shape of her invisible body was apparent under the icing that coated her scales.

Luxanna leant in and spoke into the cup, "Quite the sweet tooth you are."

To rectify last night's mistake, Luxanna woke up earlier than her dormmates, and that meant earlier than most. Therefore, the Great Hall was close to empty. This provided Luxanna with a moment of peace and quiet. It also gave Frost the freedom to move around and eat.

Looking up at the charmed ceiling—a perfect mimic of the weather outside—Luxanna took a moment to bask in daylight's glow and feel the crisp morning air, and to for once try to enjoy the simplicities of life. The sky was cloudless, making for an alluring blue and white backdrop, while the sun rays were shimmering from their corners as if carved out by a master artisan. Even clear days such as these were somehow morose, tainted, and still haunted by the greatest shadow there was—You Know Who. Somewhere far from these clouds, he was preparing his return. A life without his shadow looming over her shoulder had very quickly become unimaginable for Luxanna.

She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she did not notice when a particular figure took the liberty to sit down right next to her, interrupting her fleeting moment of serenity. Luxanna stared at the boy with her eyebrows furrowed. He took no notice; he was busy staring at the trifle cup and the contents stirring curiously inside it.

"What's the matter with that thing?"

Luxanna clicked her tongue. "In case you didn't notice, Dankworth," she started, with an almost rude emphasis on his name, "there are plenty of unoccupied seats to go around."

It was like speaking to a brick wall. As Luxanna continued to scrutinise the perplexing scene, he continued to scrutinise the dessert, warily poking it with his finger as though it might lunge at him at any moment.

"Excuse me!" She crossed her arms over her chest, edging slightly away from him.

"Is the trifle possessed? Why's it moving?"

"For Merlin's sake, we are in a magic school, just what do you expect!"

"But... it's food! Food can't move."

"Yes it can, genius! I can move it. I like my trifle mixed, do you have a problem with that?" argued Luxanna. She produced her wand and began to wave it in a circular motion; the trifle mimicked her movements, stirring gently around inside the glass. Frost was in for a bit of a headache.

"Fascinating."

"Not really," she disparaged with a frown. "Can I help you with something?"

"Oh, no, you've already helped me plenty," he replied cheerfully, then began to pile his plate with baked beans and sausage.

Once the plate was covered with various dishes, Dankworth finally came to his senses. "Actually," he began, then took a large bite and continued on with his mouth full, "Ah wamphed th'phank yew."

"What?"

"I..."—he swallowed—"wanted to thank you. I-I came here to thank you. For what you did yesterday."

"How do you mean?"

"Oh, come on. You know what I mean..." He lowered his voice like it was a delicate matter. "You helped me. You fixed my books, and then you stood up for me against Triss Selwyn, didn't you?"

"Err... Well... I wouldn't call it that..."

"I know you did," he intervened, "because Selwyn made a scene of it in Divination that afternoon, see, we were doing Tessomancy revisions and when it came to my turn, Trelawney said—"

"Wait, wait, wait..." Luxanna gestured for him to slow down. "Selwyn takes Divination?"

"Yeah, since third year..."

Luxanna looked away in time to suppress a snort. For somebody who had severely chastised her for 'talking to herself,' Selwyn was turning out to be quite the loon herself. Divination, of all subjects...

"But the point is," he continued, meanwhile gesturing with a sausage, "she predicted it. Trelawney, I mean. I always thought her predictions were a load of pants, to be fair—but she predicted it. She said somebody would come to my aid that day."

"A load of pants—is that what Muggles say? Odd."

Her comment made him visibly shrink. "Yeah, I suppose... Dunno, I haven't got many Muggle friends. Or any friends, for that matter."

Luxanna shifted in her seat, assuming a slightly snobbish stance: she had absolutely no intention of providing him with her pity. "Have you ever considered that you might be doing something wrong, if nobody wants to be your friend?"

Dankworth, however, was completely unfazed and regarded her with the same sort of honest interest as before. "No," he said simply, "have you?"

"Have I what?"

"Considered that you might be doing something wrong?" he quoted. "I mean, I don't see any of your friends around."

"Err..." His question surprised her; nobody had ever been that straightforward with her before, and the last person she had expected it to come from was Alex Dankworth. It was akin to having an interrogation light shined in your face; some invisible force was peeling back the layers and having a peek into her façade. On one hand, she felt compelled to reveal more about herself than usual—not only to prove that she wasn't such a terrible person, but also because, perhaps, she needed some sort of validation. On the other hand, she had long ago learnt to suppress those kinds of needs.

After a moment of slack jaw gaping, Luxanna decided to get straight to the point. "If you must know, it isn't anything I'm doing or have done, though I have done things. It's just the way I am—unapproachable. And anyway," she added on a harsher note, "I don't even want them as friends. They're a load of... a load of pants, as you say."

He grinned, clearly satisfied with her response. "I wouldn't say you're unapproachable. I mean, I approached you, didn't I?"

This time, she rolled her eyes. "Of course you did," she muttered under her breath, still uncomfortable with revealing too much about herself. And yet, she would not shoo him away. She took another sip of coffee and concluded in a sarcastic quip, "Anyway, it doesn't matter what I do. It's the tea leaves, Dankworth, you're predestined to suffer."

"Wonder what they'd have to say about you, then."

Once October had reared its head, autumn began to creep into the corridors, painting the castle colder and greyer, accented by the incessant patter of rain on the classroom windows. Luxanna spent the remainder of her History of Magic lesson tracking the raindrops that were sliding down the window pane in an imaginary race of her own making. Alex was sitting next to her; she had allowed him to, for she usually sat by herself. In fact, he had sat next to her in nearly every class up until this point, ever since the day he had approached her in the Great Hall. She did not quite understand why she tolerated him—perhaps it was that his quirky spirit provided a welcome detour from her typical musings.

"Lux," he was saying, "I've got to ask you something!"

Luxanna, meanwhile, was manoeuvring through the crowd of students now filing out of their classrooms, trying to establish order in the corridor.

"You, boy!" she yelled at a passing fourth year. "Hey, you! Keep to the right-hand side!"

"Wait up!" Alex called.

"And tuck your uniform, you swine!"

"Lux!" he repeated.

Whirling around, Luxanna snapped, "I told you not to call me Lux, didn't I?"

"But you call me Alex."

"Only because you asked me to."

"Well I like 'Lux,' it almost makes you sound friendly."

"You're really persistent, did you know that?"

"Oh, isn't he just!" A female voice had entered their conversation. Alex and Luxanna halted abruptly. Walking towards them was Maisie Spinster, a dark-skinned, red-haired girl—Luxanna's peculiar dormmate. Though Spinster wasn't in league with Triss Selwyn, she had her smile down to a science, perfectly calculated to draw attention.

As she edged closer, it was Luxanna's impression that she purposely weighed her steps so that the heels of her shoes would produce the most clicking achievable. And once she caught up with them, she flung her arms around both of their shoulders, making Luxanna flinch, and making Alex almost bend underneath the weight.

"Mornin' you two!" she sang.

"Geroff, Maisie!"

"You two are friends?" asked Luxanna once she had wriggled free from the girl's grasp, bemused.

"Yes!"

"No."

"Oh, Alex, don't play! Didn't you just ask for my oh so invaluable advice about—"

"Please, not now," Alex pleaded, blushing.

"Of course," Spinster said politely. "Just don't forget my Transfiguration essay!"

She was gone as quickly as she had appeared, heels clicking loudly until she had blended among the other students.

"Advice about..." Luxanna raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

"Charms."

He was lying through his teeth, but she did not press the matter, knowing that it would only yield a very tall story.

"You're doing her Transfiguration homework," she stated. "You're doing well in Transfiguration, I take it?"

This question caused him to look disheartened. "Lux, we're in the same class; you know that I always get top marks."

Luxanna, on the other hand, was absolutely dreadful at Transfiguration, and to be outdone by a Muggle-born of all people came as a fatal blow to her ego. She tried to hide it by placing a finger over her mouth and mouthing a wordless 'hmph'.

"Well, what is it that you wanted to ask?" she said, sounding almost hostile all of a sudden.

"Oh. Oh, yeah, uh... What's your favourite colour?"

She regarded him through furrowed brows before curtly answering, "Red."

"Red. Right. I'll see you later then, yeah?"

"I don't doubt that you will," Luxanna replied with an acerbic undertone.

"Seemsss you've made a friend," said Frost once he was out of earshot.

"Hardly. He's more like a... a stray pup seeking shelter," she mused. Then after thinking for a moment, she added with genuine amusement, "But he's kind of entertaining, isn't he? And he's got more cheek than anyone gives him credit for, even for a Muggle-born. Especially for a Muggle-born."

"You sspeak of him as you would speak of a Potionsss experiment."

Later that day, as Luxanna climbed the draughty stone stairs of the Astronomy Tower in pursuit of some peace and quiet (she had had her hands absolutely full with prefect duties), her thoughts wandered to the very beginning of the year, and to way before that: the night when that fateful mark had appeared in the sky and sent her life spinning off course. It was due time that she wrote to her parents, namely her father. She already anticipated their letters, for she had just turned sixteen today.

The moonlight bathed the terrace in a pallid blue light. Luxanna, wrapped in a dark leather coat and a silvery green scarf that covered her face up to her lips, walked over to the ledge and took in a deep breath of the crisp evening air, wondering.

Frost's hiss of words broke her reverie. "How gorgeousss..."

"Mmm," hummed Luxanna, unable to soothe her troubled mind—moments of peace were rare these days. She thought that growing older would make things easier to understand, but it was turning out to be quite the opposite.

"You're nearly a woman now, there is much to come, dear," Frost said as though sensing what was on her mind.

Luxanna sighed. "Then why do I still feel like a little girl?"

"You grow fiercer by the day, but so does the world, Luksss..."

"Look, Frost." Luxanna pointed a finger into the vast Scottish sky in wonder. "The Dog Star." It burned wildly against the darkness of the night, brighter than all the others. "Sirius," she whispered.

Her hand stayed aloft for several moments before continuing to gently trace the blackness. From one star to the next she drew imaginary shapes, committing them unto the sky. "Alderamin. Errai," she whispered along as she went, recalling their names. Cepheus was a house, that's how she was taught to see it. Orion, a hunter. Her mother's constellation, Carina, a ship. Well, the keel of a ship, to be precise. "Scheat, Alpheratz, Markab and Algenib make the square of Pegasus, and over to the corner, to the left over there," she pointed, "that's the Andromeda Galaxy."

"You know them by memory?"

"Of course." Every Black knew their stars. Countless evenings at the manor were spent just like this, hunched over the balustrade with an Astronomy book resting against the cool granite.

A deep sigh left her chest as she leant over, rubbing her temples slowly. Her pale fingers plucked absentmindedly at the moss covered stone as she continued to gaze out into the dark blue grounds beneath her. So quietly then, that she thought she might've imagined it, Luxanna heard faint footsteps approaching.

Her hand snuck into her left sleeve, ready to draw her wand if need arose. Frost quickly slithered back into her scarf. The footsteps grew closer and closer, until a figure emerged from the staircase. It was only when his head met the moonlight that Luxanna recognised him.

"Alex..." she said with relief (in her paranoia, she had half expected You Know Who), then she straightened up and continued on in her usual cool demeanour, "What brings you here?"

"I saw you come up here and thought I'd join you," replied Alex.

"You followed me," she stated, slightly disappointed with herself for not realising it sooner.

"Yes," he stated matter-of-factly. "And"—he drew his hands from behind his back—"I've brought you a cake. Happy birthday!"

A wave of sheer discomfort overcame her at the sight of him, so intense that she had to avert her gaze from his expectant expression.

"What do you mean? It's not my birthday," shamelessly she lied.

"Nice try," he replied, taking a step closer.

Luxanna immediately stepped back to compensate for the distance between them. Judging by his resolute expression as he approached her, she thought he might just thrust the cake into her hands against her will. Which is exactly what he did once she had run out of space behind her, and her only remaining escape would have been to mount the balustrade and jump off.

Accepting her fate, Luxanna's fingers ran over the delicate ribbon decorating the festive white container, before lifting the lid to reveal a velvety red cake topped with shiny silver candles, sixteen of them.

She murmured a peevish, "Thanks." But the words sounded almost sickly on her lips, so she countered it with an accusatory, "How did you know? I'm sure I never told anybody."

"Never mind that," he said dismissively. "Come on, you have to try it!"

Looking around, as if to double check, Luxanna could not see any chairs or tables in sight, nor cutlery for that matter. What was he thinking? But there was Alex, sitting happily on the floor with his legs crossed and clutching a pair of plastic forks in his hand. Luxanna, who had practised proper etiquette from the age of two, stood watching him, shocked.

"You don't mean..." she faltered. "Alex... do Muggles eat on the floor?"

"Yep," he replied, serving her a slice on a piece of... circular cardboard? She could not tell if he was joking.

"That's fine, really. I don't care much for cake. In fact, I didn't ask for any sort of celebration, that's why I didn't tell anyone..."

Alex was quick to shut down her poor attempt at an excuse. "Quit being so bloody-minded. I'm glad you didn't; that means I get to be the first one to congratulate you. Now sit down."

So she did, but not before laying her coat gently on the ground and placing her scarf over her folded knees as a makeshift napkin. The cake was rather tasty, she had to admit. They ate in the silence of the evening, interrupted here and there by an exchange of small talk. She was able to gauge that Alex's parents were both solicitors, working for different law firms in Manchester; they were well off and seemingly proud of their son, as evidenced by his dress sense. Oh, and the cake was his grandmother's recipe. After that, Luxanna tried to steer away from topics of parents and wealth, having grown rather weary of them since arriving at Hogwarts, and asked him instead about the scene she had witnessed several weeks prior in the Common Room.

He answered with such ease that surprised even her. "Yeah, Warrington's had it in for me since the day he found out I was Muggle-born," he explained. "I tried to hide it, y'know. I lied that I was Half-blood for nearly a year, because I'd heard back on the train that some people don't take too kindly to Muggle-borns, especially in Slytherin, so you can imagine my surprise..."

"When you got sorted into Slytherin," Luxanna finished for him.

"Anyhow, Warrington—he showed up at my dormitory when he found out and kicked me out. Emptied my trunk right in front of the door and told me not to come back. Even convinced the rest of them not to give me the password back in."

"What did you do?"

"I slept in the kitchens for a week until Professor Snape found out. Naturally, he punished me."

Luxanna bit back a snigger. It was not a laughing matter, but the way in which he told the story, so plainly and readily, was beyond humorous.

"That's fine," Alex continued. "I got him back for that, actually. I cropped out a few pages out of an old Mayfair and stuck them into his textbook."

"What's a Mayfair?"

"It's er... an adult magazine." He was visibly blushing. "I found it in my dad's room when I was twelve."

It took her a moment to understand, but once she did, her mouth fell ajar. "You... you mean..."

"Oh, yeah," Alex said with glee. "He got detention for two weeks, you should've seen the look on Professor Snape's face. Warrington gave me a good pasting afterwards, but it was worth it."

"You really ought to learn a few defensive spells, Alex."

"I tried, but I'm rubbish at those," he explained, looking slightly crestfallen. "Hey, you could teach me! I've seen you do it. I mean, that Imperius Curse, that was brilliant!"

When Luxanna didn't answer, he began to apologise. "Sorry, I didn't mean... Not brilliant, just... I figured it must take quite a bit of skill... Anyway, it's only if you want to."

"Maybe sometime..." she lied, left entirely unsure as to why she didn't outright decline him, Luxanna had no trouble being blunt, after all, but the bottom line was that her hands were already full enough to worry about Alex. If he wanted to improve his spells, perhaps he should pay closer attention in class.

After they had eaten their fill, and once curfew was nearing dangerously close, Alex got up, leaving the crumbs coating his jacket to scatter on the stone floor. Once he began to walk towards the stairwell, Luxanna hastily called out after him.

"Can you tell me something, Alex?"

"What is it?" he returned over his shoulder.

"Why'd you do all this? The cake, the candles..."

Alex laughed—a genuine sort of chuckle—but it did not stop Luxanna from taking offence for some strange reason.

"Because I want to be your friend. Isn't that enough?"

"I see," she said. Why? she thought.

After a moment, she politely bid him goodnight. As Alex disappeared into the shadow of the spiral stairwell, Luxanna remained with her hand resting around the bannister, watching him go.

The night seemed suddenly too quiet.