LUXANNA DREADED WAKING up that morning more than she had dreaded anything before. The horror that had befallen her last night consumed her mind as she lay in her four poster bed, concealed from the world by the green curtains. She didn't dare even think about what happened; didn't dare breathe life into its memory. Deciding that maybe, if she slept forever she could pretend it was all a bad dream.

Through a morning reverie, she could hear the quiet voices of her dormmates as they got dressed:

"...miss breakfast."

"...she last night? Let's ask her."

"No, no. Let her sleep in…" Triss's voice, followed by muffled giggles.

And then it was Frost's voice, and it could've been minutes or hours later, Luxanna wasn't sure. She didn't care, not for Frost nor anyone else.

"You're not going to miss your Defence class, are you?"

"I'm not planning on going anywhere, Frost. Leave me alone."

Anger pulsed within her veins, radiating to the tips of her fingers and toes, and when she clenched her eyes shut the faces of those two boys reemerged once more, their lips curved in the most pleased of smirks.

"Suit yourself," hissed Frost before slithering out of the room. Gone was the only one who would bother waking her up.

As much as she had begged for silence, Luxanna now found herself stubbornly annoyed at the prospect of no longer having anybody to bicker with, and wished that Selwyn were around just so she could tell her how silly her eyebrows looked, and how a skirt rolled up so short was against the dress code…

Luxanna's eyes flew open, struggling to adjust to the ray of sunlight piercing through the lake above, a telltale sign that hours had passed. She cursed underneath her breath, wondering what had woken her.

Her question was answered by the rattle of the door as somebody from the outside battled persistently for entrance.

"Lux I know you're in there! Open the door!" came Alex's voice from the hallway, followed by several bangs of his fist against the wood.

"Go away, this is the girls' dorm, Alex!"

"Why do you keep telling me that? I don't care. Now open the door!"

"I'm skipping today!"

Luxanna pulled the covers farther up her head, glad to pretend that she did not exist. But each pounding bang further tested her patience and served as a vexing reminder of Alex's unyielding persistence. She would not put it past him to stay there until they threw him in detention. Reluctantly, she threw on her dressing gown and slippers and waddled across the room.

"What do you want?" she asked through the closed door.

"I… Uh, well…" he strained for words. "We have a free period and I just thought you should come out and eat. And... it's late and you really shouldn't miss Transfiguration as well. I mean Snape was livid... but then I guess that could be because I'd nearly burnt a hole through my robes... Lux?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry."

"What on earth for?" Luxanna asked with surprise.

"For… for you know… for dragging you into that party."

"It's fine, Alex," she said politely, teeth clenched in discomfort. It was difficult to fathom why anybody would take responsibility for something that wasn't their fault, and Alex's freedom to do so willingly stirred an unsettling aversion within her stomach.

"It's not!" he protested. "I should've known better; should've known it was a set up. I knew there'd been something funny about them when they invited me. I just… I can't believe they're capable of something like that… And I should've been the one to pour your drinks, Lux, I'm sorry."

Rather than listen to more of his apologies, Luxanna opened the door.

"Oh, well… you look… awful. You look awful."

"Thanks."

"God, and your breath… Sorry."

"Look, I already wrote to my father and asked him if I could go home for a few days. I really can't concern myself with school right now."

"What?!" Alex gaped. "You can't! You're not giving up that easily! I won't let you!"

"You won't let me?"

"If you pack up and leave now, it'll be like proving that you're too weak to handle it, alright? They'll have won."

"They can have it. I've had enough of them. If that makes me weak, then so be it." She spoke in a matter-of-fact sort of fashion, too pained to admit that proclaiming weakness was perhaps the most humiliating thing to have done. The words would not have left her mouth under different circumstances, but right now all that mattered was winning the stubborn back and forth she and Alex were having.

"Yes, but you're not, that's my point. You're not weak. So you can't let others think so."

"Maybe I just don't care what others think of me. Unlike you."

"If that were true, you wouldn't need a truth serum to loosen up for once."

Torn between being angry or impressed by his cheek, Luxanna opened her mouth to speak but could not come up with an appropriate rebuttal, so instead she succumbed back to her previous state of lethargy by reclining into an armchair and staring up at the ceiling.

"That's enough, then," decided Alex, seizing the moment.

Luxanna refused to speak, instead, she found herself picking on her lips while the all too recent memories overwhelmed her.

Alex took a hold of her hand, prying it away from her mouth, then continued, "You'd better get dressed. We're going to the Great Hall right now, and you're going to show everyone there that you don't give two shits about their nonsense."

Luxanna stared at him. There did not exist a combination of words that could force her to leave the confines of her dormitory, and she thought, with all sincerity, that she would rather be locked into a closet with a raging Boggart than confront the humiliation waiting for her in the school corridors.

With that in mind, she stood and made for the bed, but before she could even realise the situation, there were spikes coming at her from her own sheets, growing closer and closer and—

"Are you completely insane?!" she yelled, droplets of sweat forming on her forehead. "You nearly just killed me!" He had levitated her by her dressing gown just in time, and she was now hanging right above her mattress, inches away from impalement.

"Don't be ridiculous, I would never let that happen," replied Alex casually before dangling her back to safety. "Now then, I see that getting back to bed is no longer an option."

"There's still four other…" But she could not finish her sentence, for the other four beds were now equally murderous to match.

Perhaps she would step up her Transfiguration after all, just to spite him.

With each echoing step they took, the uncertainty grew. Luxanna spent the entire way to the Great Hall crafting her escape plan from Alex, who had confiscated her wand and charmed an invisible leash around her middle, and was yanking her up the stairs like she was his prisoner.

As they passed a band of Gryffindors from last night, they oinked at her, but Luxanna was too tired even to dock points from the group, and was resigned to Alex's much smarter form of retaliation—the middle finger.

"Obliviate me, Alex..." she moaned as they climbed the stairs.

"You're the expert at that," replied Alex. "Look, don't worry. I bet nobody found out yet. If the Gryffindors were to tell anybody, they'd be in a world of trouble; they know they're not supposed to invite other houses to the commons."

"It's not the Gryffindors I'm worried about," replied Luxanna. "It's the Slytherins. Specifically, my dormmates."

"What could they know? They weren't there."

"It's clear you've never shared a room with Triss Selwyn."

Luxanna paused in front of the hall for a deep breath.

"You can do it." Alex nodded with a sad smile.

"Right…"

It was astonishing to Luxanna just how quickly the rumour of her humiliation spread throughout the school, just like Fiendfyre. Eyes locked on her as soon as the hulking doors creaked open. Ordinarily, she would have been indifferent about this, because her presence tended to attract attention one way or another. But in an ordinary setting, the glaring faces would be wearing frowns or expressions of distaste, just definitely not amused little smirks. She was being laughed at even by the students at the Slytherin table.

Luxanna held her breath, tunnel vision scoped at the chair in which she usually sat. As she walked past, she could not muster up the courage to look at her tormentors. They were likely looking back at her from the far end of the room, awaiting her reaction, but right now, Luxanna's mind was her greatest enemy.

"Well, good morning, Black," greeted Maisie Spinster. "You sure slept in. I wanted to wake you but uh, I figured you needed to sleep off the hangover."

When Luxanna didn't reply, Spinster leant in and asked, "Was it good fun? Nobody invited me."

And though Spinster's head was practically in Luxanna's plate as she quizzed her from across the table, it was Selwyn's voice that caught Luxanna's attention.

"I'm telling you…" Selwyn whispered to her friends. She lowered her tone, but her eyes were carefully trained on Luxanna, begging for attention. "Just wait until the paper arrives…"

"The paper?" asked Alex.

As soon as one of the school owls landed before her, Luxanna lunged for the Daily Prophet and began to flip through the pages feverishly, but she could not find a thing about her or the…

"Oooh!" Spinster exclaimed. In her hands was a copy of Witch's Weekly. "You're in the paper!"

Looking around, Luxanna could spot several more girls along the Slytherin table with the same magazine, and as one of them to her left squealed out and clasped her hands over her mouth in horror, Luxanna braced for the worst.

"That's romantic..." mused Spinster, straightening her glasses.

"Romantic?!" Luxanna snatched the paper from her and read, her eyes darting between the pages, catching on the most vile of keywords.

LUXANNA BLACK, DAUGHTER OF NOTORIOUS DEATH EATER CEPHEUS BLACK, AND HIS OH SO GLAMOROUS WIFE CARINA, KNOWN FOR HER OTHERWISE ICY ATTITUDE AND REPELLENT NATURE IS NOW STIRRING THE CAULDRON WITH FORBIDDEN LOVE.

AN UNLIKELY ROMANCE, SECRET AND SCANDALOUS, WITH NONE OTHER BUT THE TWIN FLAMES OF THE WEASLEY FAMILY: FRED AND GEORGE WEASLEY.

THE THREE HAVE RECENTLY ENJOYED A STEAMY MUD BATH INSIDE THE PREFECTS' BATHROOM, CLAIMS A RELIABLE SOURCE FROM INSIDE THE SCHOOL ITSELF WHO WISHED FOR THEIR NAME TO STAY SECRET. A RIVAL FOR THEIR AFFECTION, PERHAPS?

AND THOUGH THIS NEWFOUND PROMISCUITY—OTHERWISE NOT WHOLLY UNORTHODOX WITHIN THE PURE-BLOODED SOCIETY—WILL NO DOUBT BE MET WITH DISAPPROVAL BY BLACK'S WELL RENOWNED FAMILY, ONE BEGS TO ASK THE BURNING QUESTION: WHO WILL SHE CHOOSE?

RITA SKEETER, AS EVER, WILL HAVE THE ANSWER TO THAT.

"Both of them, though?" Spinster asked with a raised eyebrow.

When Luxanna looked back from the magazine she saw that her fork was jabbed into what at some point might have been eggs and bacon but now resembled an unappetizing mush.

"Fine…" she muttered to herself. "Fine…"

"I don't think she's fine…" Spinster said to Alex reproachfully.

It hardly matters, Luxanna comforted herself. It was her own idea; she ought to be happy that things were going her way. Besides, Alex was right, it wasn't as if those two could go around boasting about what they had done—though she would've loved to see them try—because Selwyn had sealed that deal with this pile of rubbish. Luxanna wrinkled the article into a ball and slid it into her pocket, then abruptly stood from the table, when the most violent shriek sounded from the Gryffindor table.

In his hands, one of the Weasley twins held the unmistakable red of a howler.

"YOU'D HAVE THIS FAMILY DRAGGED THROUGH THE MUD FOR YOUR LITTLE ANTICS! JUST WHEN I THOUGHT I'D GONE THROUGH THE WORST BIT WITH YOU TWO, YOU DECIDE TO AMAZE ME EVEN FURTHER. HAVE YOU ANY IDEA WHAT SHAME IT IS FOR A MOTHER TO LEARN THAT HER TWO SONS ARE DEVIANTS? TO THINK THAT I'D TAUGHT YOU TO HAVE RESPECT FOR GIRLS… NO, NO… SO HELP ME MERLIN, YOU BETTER BREAK IT OFF WITH HER OR YOU'RE NOT SEEING ANY GIRLS UNTIL YOU'RE THIRTY FIVE…" Her voice faded into the background and Luxanna could swear she heard something that sounded suspiciously like 'The Blacks of all the people…' Mrs Weasley then continued with her previous aggression, albeit sounding a little exhausted, "Write back once you've done it, and you better do it right now. RIGHT. NOW."

With a couple of hurried scritches, the parchment shredded itself into fine dust, and as the hall flooded with sneers and giggles, Luxanna took the chance to flee from the table. It was two steps into the corridor when she heard the hurried footsteps coming her way.

"I don't care, Alex—I'm not hungry!"

But it wasn't Alex that said, "Over here," or who pulled her into the nearby nook between the two stone gargoyles.

"You! Weasley!" exclaimed Luxanna.

"You told that Rita... woman… that Fred and I... and you..." he was muttering furiously, barely able to contain his anger. And Luxanna found herself amused at this burst of emotion because she, on the other hand, was barely containing her satisfaction.

"...so bloody sick… of you…"

"Oh, but this is a far too secluded spot for a chat, don't you think?" she replied. "Wouldn't want somebody to overhear and… I don't know… start a rumour?"

"Yeah, you'd love that, wouldn't you, you wretched snake? Can't get enough of it, can you?"

"What a choice of words, Weasley… I wonder if the tabloids are hiring. You'd give Skeeter a run for her money."

"How do you even come up with this rubbish? A mud bath? Really?"

"I fantasise about it," said Luxanna. Provoking him fueled her. So far her spirits had been lifted to a point of confidence that even last night's turmoil could not breach.

"Yeah, yeah. How did you get her to publish it overnight?" This time—and Luxanna was sure of it—there had been a note of curiosity to his tone that peeked its head out from beneath the anger. "Got some kind of secret way of communicating, huh?"

Luxanna shrugged. The truth was, she had no idea how Selwyn had managed it in the first place. "Why? Is Mummy angry with you?"

"She's got to be in cahoots with some dark wizards... Yeah, that figures," he rambled on.

Luxanna rolled her eyes. The further they strayed from the topic the less insults she could throw his way.

"Well?" inquired Luxanna, deciding to bring it to an end. "What are you going to do about it? Go and tell the whole school about your sly little quip last night? Try it. I'd pay the Fat Lady's weight in Galleons to see the look on Professor McGonagall's face."

And with that, she took off.

Revelling in her newfound triumph, Luxanna forgot about the letter that she had sent to her father, so that when the reply came the following day she was caught entirely off guard. Reclining in a waxed armchair of the Slytherin commons, she pried open the envelope with an ornate paper knife.

Dearest Lux,

I know that you wish for your father to be writing this letter, but he has had an urgent call from the office and is out assisting on a confidential case at the moment. I'm not able to get in touch with him, they don't let the owls through as you know. If you can wait, I'm sure he will be back in a few days, or I could write to the Headmaster myself. Are you alright? Tell me what happened.

Love,

Mamma

Luxanna bit her lip. Reading between the lines of constraint and compassion, it was not difficult to surmise what her mother was saying—her father was missing.

"I can't believe it," Luxanna said to Frost once they were away from the prying eyes of the Common Room. "Oh, what am I saying? Of course I can… Of course he's off on work, he practically lives at the office."

"I thought you'd changed your mind about going home."

"That's not the point. How can my mother turn a blind eye to his absence every single time? Merlin knows one day he might not make it back home. Hold on a moment... Frost, you don't think this might have something to do with the mark, do you?"

"It'sss hard to say…"

"What if it's them? His followers? What if they've got him under the Imperius Curse? Nobody would realise that he's missing until it's too late."

"Perhapsss… But even so, there'sss nothing you can do about it from here. From anywhere, Luksss, let it go."

"Actually, there might be something."

Despite Frost's multitudinous warnings, Luxanna found herself in front of the door to Professor Moody's office after Transfiguration that afternoon.

"Black," he said as she opened the door, "to what do I owe this happy intrusion from work?"

"I wanted to apologise for missing your class today."

Moody looked up from his papers with a look of near confusion, as though he couldn't quite place why anybody would apologise for such a thing. This nearly made Luxanna embarrassed for even trying, but her good manners insisted that she continue, "It's just that I'd gone to bed very late, you see, because of all the…"

"Yes, yes," Moody cut across her, "heard it all before." Then when he noticed her unease, he added with a note of sincerity, "I'm sure you had your reasons."

Having lost track of her very well improvised introduction, Luxanna struggled. "Yes… Well, thank you."

"And?"

"And…" she repeated, dragging the word out with uncertainty.

Moody exhaled a sound of amusement, akin to a chuckle. "If that's all you wanted to say you would have excused yourself from my office already."

Suddenly Luxanna wasn't sure whether or not to reveal the real reason behind her visit. Leaving now would mean leaving with an uncertainty she knew would plague her for the rest of the week, or until whenever her father decided he could reply to her. Confidential, Cepheus had said. That was a word Luxanna had grown far too accustomed to hearing over the years. Far too many times Cepheus had missed out on family dinners, social occasions, even Luxanna's very first trip to Diagon Alley, and always when she asked him why he would tell her that it was confidential business, that officers were not allowed to speak about their job, not even with their family. As a child she wondered whether such a rule even existed, or was it something parents just said to their children when they had grown tired of them.

Luxanna made her decision. "No. That's not it. I've decided to take you up on your offer, sir. But I have one condition."

"So now it's the students who come with conditions, huh? You bairns'll rob me of my job one day. Well? Out with it."

"I need you to find my father. He's on a field job right now, but I really need to get in touch with him about something urgent. I don't know the location, so I was hoping you had someone at the ministry who could..."

"Now hold on a moment— I don't work at the ministry anymore. You can tell by the missing bile of paperwork on my desk in case that wasn't obvious." He waved a paper up at Luxanna with a grim expression. "See? It's all grading tests and replying to parents now. Afraid I can't help you."

During their previous meetings, Professor Moody seemed more than keen on helping her, even breaking several school rules in the process when he'd offered her the polyjuice potion. Clearly, he wanted her to come to him, wanted her to heed his advice. That much she was sure of. Why? slightly less so. But it didn't matter right now, for it was enough to sprout a cunning idea inside Luxanna's mind.

Adopting a slightly disappointed frown, Luxanna nodded politely and said, "I understand. Sorry to have bothered you, Professor."

The thrill of his answer caused her to halt, her fingers gripping the door handle as she turned to go.

"Hold on now," he said resignedly. He didn't sound happy. "I might have someone."

With narrowed eyes, Luxanna loosened her grip and allowed the door to click back into its frame, her chest swelling with a zealous sense of satisfaction at having turned the exchange to her advantage. Once he had sent his owl off, Moody then beckoned her to a back room where he started showing her all kinds of bits and bobs—items confiscated from dark wizards as he explained—that he could get his hands on. The man seemed eerily fascinated by his own collection, well versed in various contraptions of questionable calibre from the way in which he spoke about them at length.

"And this nifty little thing here is called a Foe-glass…" Professor Moody explained, his fingers carrying a delicate touch as he rubbed a rag over the surface, demisting it. "Shows you your enemies and keeps them from sneaking up on you. Fantastic invention, really. Gave us the upper hand against Selwyn and co when we were cracking down on their hideouts, though the Ministry didn't care much for our methods. They preferred playing nice with 'em, I suppose..."

Luxanna leant forward, curious. "Fascinating. Could I see it?"

"Eh?" Her question appeared to take him by surprise. "It's very delicate," he murmured dismissively, twisting the oval frame upside down.

"Next up," he announced with a clap of his hands. He withdrew a small, leather bound book from the shelf and blew the dust off its covers before handing it to Luxanna. "Fancy little notebook, this is. Here, hold it."

It was a delicate thing, decorated with tiny characters in a flowing script. At the centre of the cover, the letter 'F' was etched in silver. "What is it?" Luxanna asked as she inspected the pages. There was nothing particularly interesting about it; the writings inside were reminiscent of those of a journal. Personal details, names, dates, locations and the like.

"This was a journal we raided from Oswald Fawley's house, look at this. Right here." He flipped to a specific page where an entry containing dozens upon dozens of questions had been cramped all together, each one unrelated to the next. "Seems like madness, don't it? That's what we thought, too. What we didn't know was that the bastard had an exact replica hidden away at his partner's place. Whatever you write in here appears on its twin's pages. A communication device. We never found the twin, so it's practically useless."

Luxanna ran her fingertips over the page. She had toyed with the idea for a while, but could never dare ask the one person who had taught it to her. "Professor... would you know a way to connect two objects like this?"

If she could discover a way to link her wand with somebody else's, as Cepheus had done, she could use his spell however she wanted, whenever she wanted, with any person of her choice.

"Unfortunately, we never did find out how it was enchanted, but... one could—in theory, of course—connect a pair of objects together through some variant of the Protean Charm. A wizard skilled enough could even... link his wand with another's, allowing him to surveil its owner..." he faltered, seemingly at a struggle with his own words, "dispatch a message as easily as though you'd thought it with your own mind..." He coughed suddenly, doubling over with his hand gripping the shelf for support, his knuckles white as they strained against the wood.

"Professor? Professor, are you alright?"

"Yes, yes," he said impatiently, waving her off with his hand, while the other clutched at his throat. His voice was incredibly hoarse when he said, "Fine. I'm fine."

Luxanna blinked. He'd sounded strangely specific just then... Almost like... But it couldn't be. Cepheus had said that he was the one to invent that spell, that nobody else knew about it.

"Are you sure?"

When Professor Moody spoke again, it was with a smirk on his face. There was that odd feeling of being on the outside of an inside joke. "Must be the antipoison I've been testing out. Cowbane."

"Is it working?"

"Do I appear to be shrinking?"

"No…"

"It's working, alright. Ah, that'll be my ministry friend," he said, following the rattling of glass that came from his main office.

Luxanna leant forward on the table she was sitting on, eager to hear the news about her father. She had become so engrossed in Professor Moody's lesson that she had momentarily forgotten about Cepheus altogether. Now, the anxiety was biting at her stomach once again.

"Your father's fine," he declared after just a quick glance at the words. "Off on a bootless chase somewhere in Suffolk, routine procedure. You'd think that after his promotion he'd lay off the travel and stick closer to home, but no, always off gallivanting about. I don't exactly blame him, do I? I hate being cooped up in that old office myself. Too many memories... Look at me now, eh? One eye, half a leg and crippled with gout... Not exactly fit for service anymore." He laughed, helping himself to a greedy swig from his hip flask.

A shudder rippled through her body. Luxanna clenched her fists tightly around the bindings of the book.

Her father wasn't hurt.

"Thank you, Professor," she said earnestly.

Professor Moody tapped his flask against the edge of his desk. He eyed her with a knowing smile on his face. "You're welcome. Just, uh... try to keep what we talked about here between us. Not that it's a secret, exactly. I'm just trying to keep Dumbledore off my back, you see. Some of my teaching methods may be too unorthodox for the old bugger's liking. I'm sure you understand."

"I do."

She glanced at the journal's cover once again; the question came to her then and there. "'F' for Fowley..."

"I sense you've got another question."

"This is their family crest, isn't it? Professor," she began, another grave memory from Cepheus's study resurfacing, "did other Pureblood families keep relics and heirlooms from generations past?"

"Well sure, plenty of wizards did. If they could afford it. Bunch of ostentatious hogwash, if you ask me. 'Here! See these silken underpants I inherited from my great great great grandfather! Aren't they fabulous?' Please... I'm surprised some of them don't have their initials emblazoned on their foreheads." He snorted and shook his head disapprovingly. "Even your school's founders had 'em."

"Oh yes, we learnt something about that in first year. There was the sword of Gryffindor..." she began to recall, "Hufflepuff had a goblet... Ravenclaw a tiara... or was it a diadem? Slytherin had..."

How had she not thought of it before?

"A locket," Moody finished for her.

"That's right..." she said quietly. "Salazar Slytherin's locket. What happened to it? Do you know?"

He fell quiet for a time. Even his blue eye stilled.

"I don't know," he said concisely. "Why not ask your father about it?"

"My father?" Luxanna asked, taken aback.

He nodded. There was a palpable shift in the air which made Luxanna's gut twist with unease. What was going on? What was Professor Moody hinting at? The silence insinuated more than it explained. She cleared her throat nervously. "Excuse me, but what does my father have to do with anything?"

Moody's mouth curled upward in an almost mocking grin. "Nothing. Nothing at all. Never mind. Just forget I mentioned it." He took another swig from his flask, smiling once again.

"But, why—?"

He held up his hand to cut her off. "Never mind. It's time you get going. I have work to do."

"Thank you once again, Professor," Luxanna said rather tersely, pushing herself up from the table. She gathered her things and, with one last glance at her professor, strode towards the exit.

As soon as the door shut behind her, the uneasy sensation that she had felt for most of the day intensified. A cold knot formed in the pit of her stomach, like a piece of lead slowly sinking into quicksand.

There was more than just a reluctance to share information with her lurking behind that remark, she realised.