Chapter 39 - A glimpse of danger

It was all falling apart.

He could have handled a rogue student, maybe a dark artifact or even some obscure magical beast. But a Dark Lord? Had the old man actually gone senile? Or worse, had he been serious? It was one thing to go on these little adventures, write stories about them, become the hero of the people, but an actual war?

Memories of the last war still haunted his dreams to this day. And he hadn't even really participated. But with his current reputation, that was exactly what people were expecting of him.

He hadn't known what to expect when Dumbledore had approached him to talk about something called the Order of the Phoenix, but now after the fact, he wished he had just turned him down. But he also knew he couldn't just run. Gilderoy Lockhart wouldn't do that.

He still had no idea what to do in regard to the war, but at least, he had managed to buy time by promising Dumbledore to focus on the business with the Heir of Slytherin first and foremost. He had planned to do that anyway. And yet, that still left him without ideas on how to continue after that. Was it perhaps time to hang up his wand? Put the legend of the hero to rest? Disappear into the annals of history?

The disturbed man was jolted from his thoughts as a resounding knock came echoing from his office door.

"Professor Lockhart?"

Gilderoy sighed, stowed away his current manuscript, and waved his wand to unlock the door. "Come in."

And in walked the other major issue with his current situation, in the form of the Potter twins. The boy who he had thought might be a kindred spirit—fame almost beyond his own even from childhood, but who instead appeared all too innocent, sheltered, idealistic. And the girl, who had proven to be the exact opposite, when she had attempted to blackmail him into joining the investigation on threat of revealing his blunder, right in front of her brother. Which he hadn't even noticed, and instead helped her along.

If nothing else, Gilderoy trusted the boy's intentions. But with her? The only thing he could say for certain was that she cared deeply about her brother. And, he supposed, that she wasn't the heir.

He looked from her, back over to the boy, until he spoke up. "I presume this is about the heir?"

Twin nods came in response. Then the boy spoke up. "Have you heard anything about the artifact?"

Straight to the point, eh? That was fine with him. "After an anonymous tip provided by Lucius Malfoy, the castle was searched for an alleged dark artifact that he claimed was responsible for the attacks. Later, he revealed evidence that young Miss Weasley might be the one in possession of it. Upon questioning her, she confirmed this, but also claims that she has destroyed the artifact using fire in the wake of the last attack."

His sister spoke up. "Do you know any details? What it was, what it looked like..."

Gilderoy's face twisted into a grimace. "Sadly, we don't. It seems Miss Weasley is completely unable to recall any specific details about the artifact in question. The only thing she remembers was that it was communicating with her, and seemed very interested in her personal affairs, her feelings, and was trying to pretend it was her friend, and trying to get her to distance herself from her other friends."

The girl cut right back in. "Well, but that doesn't necessarily mean it was related to the heir... We know that the Dark Lord wanted the artifact back, maybe Malfoy just came up with that story in order to convince the Aurors?"

Gilderoy frowned. He hadn't actually considered that. He had been sure that it had to be the artifact, but thinking about it, this was very much a possibility.

"Do you have any ideas on how the attacks were done? Iris thinks it's unlikely to have been caused by a spell or a potion, which pretty much leaves creatures and rituals."

"Perhaps," Gilderoy admitted. "Due to the way it manifests exactly the same each time, I think it unlikely to be caused by a ritual. Of course, we cannot rule it out, but I think the first avenue of research should be into magical creatures. If for no other reason than that the myth suggests that there is a monster inside the Chamber of Secrets."

"So you think it might be the actual heir after all? My first thought was that it was just someone using the myth as a cover story..." the redhead queried.

Gilderoy nodded. "That was my thought as well, but given all the remaining evidence so far, perhaps it's too soon to discount the idea that it might actually be the Heir of Slytherin."

He sank back down onto his chair and sighed. "But that leaves another conundrum. I know of not a single magical creature that could petrify not just people, but ghosts as well, and also kill in the way it was done at Halloween."

His glance wandered in between the Potter twins, until the boy spoke up again. "What if it was all the same attack? Maybe Mrs. Norris was just too weak and died from it instead, or maybe it is meant to kill, and the students somehow survived it because they were human? Maybe that's the same thing that happened to Nearly-Headless Nick?"

The girl raised an eyebrow and turned towards her brother. "Who's that?"

"He's the ghost that got petrified," her brother explained.

That idea was... Well, after the first attack, he did have one ludicrous theory, which he immediately discarded because it was so insane, and after the second attack it didn't make sense anyway, but...

"Sir?" the girl had seemingly caught on to his thoughts.

Gilderoy sighed. Well, he might as well tell them. "After the first attack, considering the evidence available, and the claim for it to be related to the Chamber of Secrets, and Slytherins monster allegedly contained within, I suspected that it could have been a basilisk."

The girl's eyes went wide, while her brother turned a questioning gaze at her.

"That... that would explain Mrs. Norris, but... not the petrifications... Basilisks don't petrify, I think..."

"What's a basilisk?" interjected the boy.

"They indeed don't. A basilisk, also known as the king of serpents, is a large magical snake that can grow up to hundreds of years old, its venom is the strongest magical venom in existence—to the point where it's impossible to store it in anything other than the original fang, and nothing save for Phoenix Tears would be able to cure it—and it can kill its prey with but a glance of its eyes. It would certainly fit with the first attack, except for the concerning bit for how a basilisk of all things would get into Hogwarts, but the other two attacks... There aren't any recorded cases where a basilisk would petrify instead of kill, and it happened twice. Well, maybe three times, if you count the ghost."

The redheaded girl shifted nervously for a bit, until she spoke up again. "But... you said it's a snake, right? Does that mean it would also speak Parseltongue?"

Silence filled the room at that question.

That... that was...

Gilderoy of course remembered the boy's claim of having heard a voice before the attacks, something large and ancient, which nobody else was able to hear. But if that had been Parseltongue...

Eyes swapped wary glances between the three of them. They all knew, they had to be onto something here. There was just one puzzle piece missing. Just how had the basilisk petrified instead of killed?

Finally, his sister spoke up again. "Was there anything else off about the way the students were found? Anything that would maybe explain the difference why they got petrified? I mean, other than the ghost, I don't think I noticed anything about Justin, but what about the Gryffindor kid that got attacked?"

Before she even finished talking, it had clicked. That had to be it. His camera... who knows what effect that would have had...

"Mr. Creevey was looking through his photo camera when he was petrified. I think it's possible that this would explain why he wasn't killed by its gaze, if he saw it through the refection inside the camera. As for Mr. Finch-Fletcheley..."

"He must have seen it through Nearly-Headless Nick!" exclaimed the bespectacled boy. "And Nick's a ghost, he can't die again, so he got petrified as well."

Gilderoy just nodded. "This... is a rather troubling turn of events. As much as I am loathe to even consider the idea, it seems we might indeed be facing Slytherin's monster after all..."

A Merlin-damned basilisk...

Maybe, he thought, it really was time to retire.

Perhaps. But only after he found the heir.

His eyes drifted down onto the fresh pages of his manuscript sitting in his drawer. This would be his magnum opus. One final grand epic to end the legend of Gilderoy Lockhart, to allow everyone to remember him at his best, before he would be gone for good. Because before the war inevitably made him disappear, he would make himself disappear first.

~V~

"So yeah, long story short, it's very likely that the monster is a basilisk."

The girl's eyes widened and she clapped her hands together. "Wow! You really figured it out?" gushed the lively ghost.

"It was more of a group effort, really," admitted Iris.

She had been catching up Myrtle on her way back from Lockhart's office, and so far, hadn't even had to regret it yet.

"But even if we now know how the attacks were done, we aren't any closer to finding the heir. And on top of that, You-Know-Who has returned, and meanwhile I can barely beat Susan with all the spells I can't cast, much less protect Harry from a Dark Lord..."

"Oh... that sounds horrible..." the ghost began. "You wanna talk about it?"

Iris shot the ghost a determined look. "It just means I have to work even harder."

"Very true. There's very few ways to grow stronger that don't involve years of learning, hard work, and diligent practice." After a bit of a pause, Myrtle spoke up again. "What spells are you having trouble with? Maybe I can give you a few tips? I happen to remember a spell or two, you know?"

Iris sighed. Could she trust the girl with something like this? She hadn't felt comfortable sharing her feelings, especially after her experience with her last Defense teacher, but maybe the ghost could help her figure out her magic instead? She guessed she could just omit anything that wasn't basically public knowledge anyway. She didn't have to trust her in order for her to be useful.

After a few seconds of pause, she relented. "It's not an issue that I don't know how to cast it, or can't manage the motions or incantation. My magic is just broken. Right now, I can't do any spells that require more than two aspects to function."

The ghost girl floated up to her and raised an eyebrow as she cupped her chin to peer closely at her. "Huuh? How does that work? Spells just use the aspects they need automatically. It shouldn't matter how many of them a spell uses."

Iris gave her a wry smile. "Well, it does, when your magic isn't White in its natural state."

She turned to look at Myrtle, raised a hand, and called her orb of iridescent light, causing the girl to gasp.

"I can't do spells the regular way at all. When I use my light like this, the effects are completely random. But when I turn it to the respective aspects a spell needs, it works," Iris explained, and turned her orb blue.

"Problem is, I can't do more than two colors at once. And there's a lot of spells that need all seven. Mainly the shield charm and Finite are the biggest obstacles in dueling, it seems."

The ghost girl was now staring at her like a child in a candy store. Great.

"I've never heard of anything like that! But I guess that makes any general shields pretty much useless to you... Have you tried aspect-focused shielding spells like Reiecto?"

That... wait. Was that the spell that Malfoy had used? That was... aspect specific? So it didn't just reflect a spell, but only worked on a single aspect? She definitely had to know more now.

After a long and exhausting bout of questions, in which Iris somehow gained more insight than she'd like to admit, she had to basically threaten to take the ghost to her least favorite grandpa in order to finally get her to leave her alone.

Still, she couldn't find it in her to regret her decision either. The girl really seemed to know her stuff, and her curiosity only drove her further into trying to figure out how her magic worked.

"Oh really, you didn't? You know, I never thought I'd ever see the day where you actually apologized for something..."

Iris snapped out of her thoughts, as she heard the voice, just as she stepped around a corner. What had-

Her gaze fell onto long shoulder-length black hair, and silvery-blue eyes. The girl blinked at her, and her smile melted, as they both came to a stop.

Greengrass? Sorry, what? She wasn't really listening, what did she want from her?

Upon further inspection, she realized that the girl hadn't even looked at her, only now did she turn to meet her gaze. Had she not been talking to her?

...Or had she? There wasn't anyone else here...

The Slytherin girl held her gaze for a second, before she resumed her pace and swept past her without so much as a word. Iris stared after her forlornly until she turned another corner, and she was gone.

~V~

"Pulsare!"

Iris winced and stumbled backwards. She had managed to cancel the first spell, but the second one had been a bit more powerful than usual and had knocked her off balance enough that she wouldn't be able to dodge.

"Expelliarmus!"

In response, Iris drew red light, swirled her wand and shouted "Reiecto!"

Susan's spell struck true, and impacted the small red shield, which caused a red beam to reflect back at her, while the yellow Control aspect of the spell continued past it and harmlessly splashed against Iris' robes.

The angry red light returned right back at Susan, who instead of shielding or dodging, just ignored the spell as it impacted her thigh, only slightly wincing from the jab of pain. The girl had quickly realized that the reflected spell would be pretty much as useless as the spells she had done before she had figured out how to combine two colors, and had consequently begun to ignore them to use the opening they provided.

This was pretty much the expected behavior of the reflective shield spell; Hermione just hadn't known that apparently. You could use it to efficiently neutralize most spells, as long as you could guess one of its aspects, and the remaining aspects weren't enough to do much damage. Of course, it was actually a seventh-year spell. Not because of its complexity, which was actually rather simple, but because it required you to perform aspect-focusing to cast it. Luckily, Iris already had some experience with that.

"Everte statum!" came a shout from Susan, who was capitalizing on the opening, but this time, Iris had gathered her footing again.

With a grin, she sidestepped, jabbed her wand and closed her eyes.

"Lumos!"

"Gaah!" came a shout from the lighter-colored redhead.

"Ventus!"

A sharp gust of wind swept down the classroom at an angle, then curved mid-air and hit Susan from the side—a direction she hadn't been expecting—squarely knocking her off balance, while she was blinded by the sharp flash of iridescent colors.

"Expelliarmus!"

The red jet of light struck true, and before Susan could manage to regain her balance, her wand was torn from her grasp yet again.

"Merlin, Iris, you're... insane!"

Iris gave a wry smile back. True, at first Susan had felt impossible to overcome, but now that she both had a strategy against her signature combo, as well as some experience fighting her—when she had finally managed to talk to her and get her to agree to practice with her over the holidays—she had found herself rapidly outpacing her friend. And now that she had figured out how to sort of shield spells as well, it had quickly gotten to the point where she now had to hold back instead in order for the match to not end in a few seconds. And yet... the more she learned, the more she improved, the more she realized just how far she had yet to go.

Still, Susan was great in technique as well as speed, both things which she still had to get better at.

"Wanna go another round with only disarming charms?"

Susan gave a grateful smile. "Yeah, I'd love that. At least I got you beat in those," she added with a grin.

Iris just grinned back. "For now."

Both girls readied their wands, and on the count of three, there were once more twin shouts of "Expelliarmus!"

~V~

"Welcome back, everyone, I hope you've all enjoyed your holidays! Now, it's a new year, and so I thought we'd switch it up a little. Which means every one of you will be picking a brand-new dueling partner."

Finally! Iris quickly scanned the room, looking for the familiar pretty black hair, until she found her—already partnered with Hermione of all people. Damn it!

Well, maybe... She kept looking, and found Harry, who was currently talking to Susan. Well, okay, she guessed they could probably work together pretty well. Looking further, she tried looking for Tracey or Theo, but along the way she noticed Malfoy, who once again didn't have a partner. Nope. No, thank you, sir—Hold on.

Yeah, she had pretty much one-shot him a year ago, and he had never performed anywhere near exceptional in Charms, but...

He had cast Reiecto in his duel against Hermione. And while that spell wasn't very complex, it required you to be able to use aspect-focusing, which was a mastery-level technique. How on earth had Malfoy managed to pull that off?

Yeah, she was one to talk when it came to that, but still. Now, she had gotten curious.

And before she could even really think about it, she called out, "Hey Malfoy. You looking for a partner?"

Said boy slowly turned to face her, and his face slowly grew into a smirk. "Potter... And here I thought you'd never ask."

Iris blinked at that reaction. The last time they had really interacted, she had terrified him beyond the ability to speak. But instead of wariness or fear, she only saw challenge and disdain in his eyes. What had changed?

Well, she supposed it had been over a year, but still. Did that mean she once again had to worry about him spreading what he had seen about her shadows?

The two second year Slytherins ascended the podium and squared up on opposite sides, while Professor Flitwick stepped up and gave her a cheerful smile, which didn't manage to reassure her much.

Instead, her mind was already running through scenarios. She hadn't seen much of his duel, but she knew he could use the reflective shield, and probably the regular shield as well. Also, he had used Corrumpo last year, but her spells weren't unstable enough for that to work anyway. He also knew a bunch of other spells, some of which he had used against Harry, and a few more against Hermione.

She couldn't go and use any spells that might possibly cause injury, and using any polarized magic was even worse of an idea. Maybe she should go for her Depulso spell from the start? But it would leave her open, and if he somehow managed to dodge, it would reveal her trump card from the start. No, if she wanted to end this quickly and decisively, she could take a page out of Susan's book.

On the count of three, just as she had practiced several times, she quickly drew a mix of Yellow and Orange, jabbed her wand in the familiar pattern and shouted "Lapsus!"

Not even giving him a second to think, she began changing her light to Orange and Blue instead, but she was interrupted by a shout of "Corrumpo!"

And her wand shivered and sparked blue, the friction-reduction jinx fizzling before it even really had left her wand. Of course. She had completely forgotten about that. Susan hadn't been able to use that spell, so she had never expected that it would be turned around on her like that.

"Petrificus Totalus!"

Crap! She knew that spell, but she hadn't cast it yet, and she had no idea what aspects it would use, so she couldn't use the reflective shield! Scrambling, Iris dodged to the side, almost losing her footing, but managed to catch herself just in time.

"Expelliarmus!"

He just wasn't giving her a break. Iris stepped to the other side, this time without stumbling, and forced her wand to produce a violet glow from the combined aspects of Mind as well as Illusion, and shouted "Rictusempra!"

There. Let's see how he liked a taste of his own medicine. The Violet ray of light came barreling towards Malfoy, who frowned, and swirled his own wand with a shout of "Reiecto!"

The violet shield seemingly reflected the spell, but instead of dodging, she just let it splash against her shoulder with a smirk.

Malfoy frowned, then swiped his wand in a familiar pattern and shouted "Everte statum!" Iris swirled her wand, quickly drew blue light and shouted "Reiecto!"

The small circular blue shield formed, and the blue spell bounced back, while its yellow counterpart continued past it and harmlessly smacked against her chest. Iris smirked—eager to return the favor. She dropped the shield, began gathering blue light, and before Malfoy could get over his shock of her using his spell against him, she shouted "Depulso!"

A frizzling bright blue bolt left her wand, and he hastily swirled his wand yet again, once more producing a blue shield of his own. Not that it would help him much. That mono-aspect spell had smashed even through Warrington's shield.

Iris smirked as the spell came barreling towards the pitiful circular shield, until its tip met the surface. Her eyes widened as the spell in fact didn't smash through, but instead was simply reflected just like all the other spells. Staring at the useless blue reflected bolt now returning towards her, her eyes narrowed. She guessed she'd just have to try something else then. At least, she had a sort of opening. She began drawing up Orange and Yellow light and-

The blue spell impacted her chest and knocked the air out of her lungs as she felt herself flung back hard by the spell of her own making, which had—contrary to her expectations—not malfunctioned like all the others had.

Iris was tumbling upside down several times, unable to tell where the ground was—her vision gradually turning red, until she impacted the stone wall hard. The girl tumbled to the ground with a groan, just in time to hear Professor Flitwick call the match.

She had no idea what had just happened, but as she tried to walk back through her memories, what she had done, and what Malfoy had done, she slowly came to a gradual realization.

Fuck.

~V~

"What the fuck am I even supposed to do against that?" Iris ranted, pacing up and down the empty classroom.

"He can just use interference against Susan's combo, and he just shields everything I throw at him, and the one spell that could get through he can not only block, but knock me out with it because I'm stupid! It's a mono-aspect spell, and the shield reflects a single aspect!"

"Huh, that sounds frustrating... Are you worried because of that? About your brother, I mean."

Iris groaned at the ghost's words, but didn't answer. She had partially taken up the ghost on her offer to avoid having to talk about how she felt with her friends again, but it seemed like she wasn't even safe from that with Myrtle. She was right though. How was she supposed to protect Harry from the heir, if she couldn't even defeat Malfoy?

The girl was now floating upside down, her fingers resting against the center of her glasses. "So you can't use normal spells because he'll just shield them, you can't use area spells because he'll interfere with them, and you can't use mono-aspect spells to break the shield, because he'll reflect them back at you. Looks like the problem isn't your spells, or his spells, but the fact he knows which spells you are casting."

Iris blinked. "Well, yeah. But what am I supposed to do against that?"

"Well, if he recognizes your spells from their incantations, you'll just have to not use them."

"What, the spells?" Iris raised an eyebrow.

The floating girl giggled. "No, silly. The incantations!"

Myrtle spun back around, flew up to the blackboard, pushed her glasses back up and produced a cane from... somewhere.

"Now, listen up, class!" she declared, and rapped the cane against the blackboard, causing a circle to appear, which was then filled with a triangle.

"When we cast spells, there are three essential components to that, which we use to mold our magic into the required shape. Can anyone tell me what they are?"

The ghost let her expectant gaze sweep around the otherwise empty room, causing Iris to roll her eyes. Finally, she sighed and acquiesced.

"Well, of course the incantation, and the motion."

Said words appeared at the respective corners of the triangle, causing Myrtle to happily nod. "Two points to Slytherin! And the third one?"

"Uh... intent?"

"Nope! Intent isn't even all that important for most spells when using these. The last component is the wand itself!"

"Alright... but where are you going with this?"

"Well, what they don't tell you, is that given enough skill and practice, you can replace some or all of them with... nothing!"

Iris blinked. Some or all? But then... how would you do spells then? No, actually, that was a stupid question. She had been using her light for years, and that required none of these. Although it didn't really count as a spell, probably. But it did do something very specific, and she could make it do pretty much anything—except turn white, that is.

Also, thinking back, she had done the levitation charm this summer without really speaking the incantation, she had been doing the spell so much, that she had mostly felt what it should be doing, and made her magic conform to that.

"The easiest to replace is the incantation, the motion is a bit more tricky, and the hardest is the wand itself, obviously. And then there are still some spells that won't work at all without a wand to guide them, are way too complex to stabilize without a precise motion, or have enough ritualistic significance that you need to pronounce the incantation out loud every time. And, of course, using polarized magic without a wand is a quick shortcut to earning the Darwin award," she added with a grin.

"Right..." At this point, Iris wasn't even surprised anymore that the energetic girl knew about polarized magic.

She let her mind wander back to what she had done back in Privet drive, the way she had cast the spell in the blink of an eye. She wasn't sure if she had done the motion correctly there, and she definitely hadn't said the incantation out loud, but it had felt just like casting the spell normally. And, obviously, she had to draw the aspects first. So, aiming her wand, she once again produced the combined glow of Force and Control, swished and flicked, and... nothing.

"So what you want to do is-"

Wingardium Leviosa! Recalling the spell in her mind, she repeated the motion, and this time, the old chair in the corner started floating. Iris turned to look back at the ghost and smirked.

"Wow, that was so quick! You really have a knack for this stuff!" the excitable ghost gushed.

"I just remembered I did it once before," Iris admitted. "Also, I guess I had a bunch of practice with my light."

Iris then shifted her light over to just Blue, closed her eyes, performed the familiar swish and jab, and-

Something blue flashed through her closed eyelids and a loud crash accompanied the chair being forcefully slammed into the far wall.

Iris opened her eyes only to be met with a pouting Myrtle. "Teaching you is no fun if you just figure it out before I even get the chance to explain. Are you sure you're actually a second-year?"

Iris just shrugged. "Well, thanks, I guess, I'll try using that next time..." she said and turned to head for the door. This place was still kinda weird. Also, she really should be getting back anyway.

"Now, hang on! We're only getting started! You just figured something out that damn well took me weeks in mere minutes! My hurt pride aside, I really think we should try something a bit more fun~"

Iris paused, then turned around. "How fun?"

Myrtle floated right up to her face and grinned, her eyes gleaming. "With the way you've just done it on your first try, I think you should try that spell without a wand."

Well, yeah. And she had. Who wouldn't? Even with her light. But so far, her spells had only ever worked when holding her wand.

But no, that wasn't exactly true either. She had done a few things without her wand aside from her light already... Like making the Defibrillator work. Or whatever she had done to Neville, that was, if that had actually done anything. But none of those had been actual spells.

"Casting spells without a wand is a heck of a lot harder. You have to make a face like this, and stretch out your hand like that, and concentrate reaaaal hard and go HNNNNNNNNNGGG!"

Iris stared blankly at the girl who had thrust her hands into her face while she was making a face and sounds as if she were three weeks constipated.

Finally, she simply turned around, and started heading for the door again.

"Oh come on, I'm kidding. But seriously, the wand is the most important of the three, so it gets exponentially harder if you leave it out. So to start with, try to make up for it by going hard on the other two components. Another big thing is the fact that the wand naturally helps to focus our spells into a thin beam. Since your body doesn't do that, you'll have to make up for it with your mind."

Well, that part seemed easy. She had already produced laser-like beams even without her wand when trying to get her light to split. Would that work? She raised her left hand, enveloped it in blue light, then narrowed it into a thin beam. "Like this?"

"Fancy! But that's not quite it. You've narrowed down the aspect itself, but you need to make the spell that emerges assume the same form. Try closing your eyes. When you try to cast the spell, the way it feels in your hand, when it tries to gather into the wand, try to comparing that with how it feels when you do the same with an actual wand in your other hand."

Iris was already way ahead of her. Both hands now aglow in blue, one holding her wand, and the other nothing. She formed her left hand into a flat palm, and jabbed it forwards. "Depulso!"

Well, she definitely felt... something. But it was more like when she had first tried to gather polarized magic into her wand. There was some resistance, and it didn't readily want to obey her the same way it did when using her wand.

Performing the spell with her right hand in comparison, caused the magic to be drawn inwards, and flow into a sort of spear-like shape. At least, that's what it felt like. Iris closed her eyes again, and jabbed her left hand again, this time trying to force her magic into a similar shape, and once again incanted "Depulso!"

This time, there was a tiny shockwave inside her hand, but other than some sparks, nothing much happened. Repeating the comparison again, she couldn't really tell much of a difference. Frowning, she opened her eyes, and repeated her test. And then, she saw it. The pretty shapes of color flowed together and molded into a sort of spear shape. But the end of the forming spell seemed to be somewhat twisted, in a way that would cause it to spin around itself once she let go, where with her left hand, it simply flew apart as soon as she cast it.

Taking a deep breath, she once again drew up blue light, and made as if to cast the spell, trying to force her magic into the spear shape, then jabbed her palm forwards, and just as she let go, she added a little twist. "Depulso!"

A frizzling bright bolt of blue light left her hand, causing her eyes to widen. Myrtle watched in awe as it sizzled across the room, flinging wild sparks every which way as it went, and seemingly growing smaller, weaker, the further it reached. Just before it was about to completely fizzle out, it impacted the chair, and caused it to gently tip forwards, and fall over.

"What the hell, Iris?! How'd you do that?" the girl squealed, and seemingly forgot for a moment that she was incorporeal, as she flung herself at Iris, trying to engulf her into a hug, only to glide right through her with nothing but a soft tingle, and tumble into the ground instead. "Aw man..."

~V~

She had tried a few more times, but in the end, she had to give it up for now. No matter what she tried, she couldn't quite manage to stabilize the spell without her wand, and it wouldn't reach any further than a few meters. Maybe, she was still missing something. Or maybe, it was just down to practice. But for now, she had one more thing she wanted to try. But she couldn't do that around Myrtle. So despite the girl's adamant protests, she had finally decided to leave her and head into the castle. Once she was out of sight, she quickly drew on the shadows, and for the first time in a while, entered the shadow realm.

She really wanted to try her one polarized spell wordlessly. But there was only one place in the castle she felt was safe enough to do anything like that.

Soon, she found herself in the familiar moonlit hallways of the old detention wing. She peeled open the sole narrow rift left in the brightly lit space, and found herself in the tall room where she did most of her experimenting. Iris quickly set down her bag right next to the large prism still sitting in the center of the room, and turned to get to work. Pulling out a plushy from Tracey she sometimes used as a target dummy, she set it down onto the podium illuminated by the bright moonlight.

That... hold on. Iris took a step back, and slowly looked up, further, up the shaft, until her eyes found the one thing she didn't want to see right now. The damn full moon. Fuck.

How had she forgotten to check?

Whirling around, she hastily reached for the shadows again, but froze half-way as she stared into the wide-open maw of her history professor.

Only after several terrifying seconds did she realize that for some reason, she was—in fact—not dead.

What? Why was he-

He... Why wasn't he moving?

Shaking, Iris took an unsteady step backwards, then another, as she stared at the hulking form of the fully transformed werewolf, who was still staring back, completely frozen in place.

No... Not frozen.

Petrified.