FOLLOWING THE SERIES of tiresome back to back essays, a failed Transfiguration exercise, and a water balloon from Peeves (courtesy of Fred and George Weasley) Luxanna stormed up the stairs to the Owlery, dripping water all over the steps as she reconsidered the recent idea of going home for a few days. As a group of younger students passed her, she didn't hesitate to hex one of the boys' hoods over his head, while his friend sprouted a cluster of boils on his face. Then upon reaching the top of the tower, Luxanna banged the door shut, causing the owls that had been resting peacefully to screech and flap their wings in surprise.

"NOCTIS!"

Once Noctis caught sight of Luxanna's fuming form, he halted mid flap—clearly at odds on whether or not she might strangle him—before landing on her shoulder.

Straightening out the parchment that had been crammed tightly inside her fist, Luxanna tightened her fingers around her quill and began to write.

"Dear… Father…"

Mother wrote to me and said that you were away on confidential business. I wish to understand how a trifling chase in Suffolk constitutes as urgent enough for you to not answer me, especially when you've already made it clear how important it is that we stay in touch. Oh, and don't bother with an excuse, Professor Moody has already told me everything. He still has friends at the ministry, you see.

Sincerely,

Luxanna

P.S. Why do you have Salazar's Slytherin's locket?

Most of the time, shame and regret quickly followed behind the initial anger that drove her to such childish outbursts, but today, after several days of bitter waiting, once the reply had finally come, Luxanna realised she had been too easy on her father. She had waited until within the confines of the Chamber to pry open the envelope, where only Frost could hear her voice when she read it aloud.

"Dear Luxanna, I am regretful to say that I cannot disclose any..." Luxanna paused, her brows furrowing and her jaw travelling south.

"...any further information for what I'm about to tell you, but understand that you must trussst me," Frost finished for her.

Aside from your mandatory classes with him, do not interact with Professor Moody.

As for what you wrote at the very end of your last letter, you need to learn to understand that some things simply do not concern you. What ought to concern you are your studies, not the contents of my office. Let us please leave it at that.

Sincerely,

C.A.B.

Cepheus Alphard Black

Luxanna crumpled the letter into a ball and launched it across the room, where it landed in a murky puddle.

"Cannot disclose? Cannot disclose? Trust him? TRUST?" Luxanna ranted, pacing up and down with her arms folded over her chest.

"Hold on now, Lukss," said Frost as she uncoiled herself from Luxanna's hair.

"Do your Prefect duties! Respect your peers! Practise your wandplay! Maintain order! Behave properly and make sure you study, because if you don't, you might not live up to your precious family's name! HAH!"

"Luksss... Luksss..."

"Why, may I ask? Oh, because I'm your father and I said so!"

"That's enough," said Frost.

"Does he take me for an idiot?!"

"You need to calm down."

"I. WILL. NOT!"

Frost bit into her earlobe painfully, and Luxanna squealed, her hand instinctively wrapping around Frost's tail and flinging her away. She landed on an armchair and stuck her tongue out at Luxanna.

Her growling breaths grew heavier as she stomped through the long corridor towards Professor Moody's office. Luxanna did not know why she had wanted to go there, or what she hoped to find. It was not until she reached his door and stopped abruptly that she realised she was shaking. She rapped sharply on the door, sucking in a deep breath.

The response came not from within the door, but from the other side of the hallway. Moody was approaching her, and as he drew closer, he cast her a sympathetic look, one that served an invitation to say the things at the very forefront of her mind.

"My father doesn't want me talking to you."

Professor Moody said nothing as he brushed past her, fumbling for the keys to his office, but Luxanna could swear that his lip curled ever so slightly, whether out of amusement or mockery, she could not be sure.

"Quit minding your manners and come in," Moody instructed as he made way to his desk. He unlocked the drawer with the same set of keys, then pulled out a chair, motioning for her to sit.

"He sent me a letter just now. He said I'm not to associate with you, but he didn't say why."

"Listen to me," said Professor Moody seriously once he had sat down, "your father and I aren't strictly on good terms. Frankly, we never were, but it's worse now. As people get older, they lose patience for others, become rooted in their beliefs..."

"But that's so childish!" interjected Luxanna. "Just because of some... some grudge he and you have..."

"It's not just a grudge. Cepheus and I go way back."

"How was he, when you first met him? Did he always dislike you?"

"When I first met Cepheus, he was eleven years old."

"What? Really?" Luxanna leant forward in her chair.

"Really. I was a Prefect at Hogwarts myself. Showed him to the Quidditch pitch one afternoon. Quite impressed by how fast he was, but more than anything else, his will. Always trying to prove himself, always having an opinion about everything. And I don't think he did it for others, either. No, he wasn't arrogant like that, not like his brother... The boy had no idea what he was capable of."

Even Moody was man enough to admit admiration where her father could not, despite the adversity between them. Especially with the adversity between them…

"I didn't know you went to school with my father, I thought you were..."

"Old?" he said suddenly, his face twisted in a frown. Upon seeing the look on Luxanna's face, he burst out in a laugh. "You should be glad your father always looked out for his face instead of his back, else he might have wound up with scars as nasty as these." He pointed to the gash in his cheek, where an entire blotch of tissue was missing. "No, uh, I must have been in my... sixth year when Cepheus arrived at Hogwarts, so it'd be lying if I said I knew him. I did see him around though, him and that brother of his, Regulus."

"You mean Sirius?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Sirius."

"Regulus was younger by a few years, you wouldn't have known him."

"Got the names jumbled up."

"Did you train at the same academy together?"

"Sure did. I was his sergeant. Before Cepheus came in on a referral from Shacklebolt, nobody thought they'd let anyone without a perfectly polished record ever apply, but it turned out him knowing all those dark wizards came in handy. Hell, that's how that fool, Lucius Malfoy got his job at the ministry. Training was vigorous, they had us doing obstacle courses on brooms—I hear that's the only reason your father trained Quidditch at school; knew what he wanted from a young age, he did—then there was Duelling training, Tracking, Magical Theory, Utility & Instruments, Potions... but by far the worst the part was when those SOS fuckers came around; you know, the Statute of Secrecy Task Force. They would grill us about subtlety, of all things—introduced all these new undercover operations, and suddenly avoiding Muggles was more important than actually catching killers. What happened to the good old Memory Charm?"

"Killers..." echoed Luxanna. She hesitated for a moment, but decided to press on in spite of her manners, "Professor... did my father ever kill somebody?"

Moody crossed his arms on the table, meeting Luxanna's questions with a long, hard stare. After taking a moment to gather his thoughts, he nodded briefly. "Once," he said, his voice low. Then after a pause he continued on, "Well, if you count wizard versus wizard as murder, then yes, your father killed someone. But then again, so did many other Aurors, if not most. Wouldn't you rather have that than innocents dying?"

"I suppose," said Luxanna, unsure of what she was truthfully supposed to prefer. Just the thought of her father slaying another man caused her heart to twist in her chest.

"Ah, well, don't think too much about it. Killing doesn't make or break a person. Besides, he's not only got strangers to protect, he's got family now. You."

"Then why does he hate me?" she asked impulsively, a bitter taste forming in her mouth.

"If he hated you, he wouldn't be so hellbent on keeping you safe."

"And he's keeping me safe by forbidding me from speaking to you?"

"Well..." Professor Moody shrugged with a half frown. "It's your father, you ought to trust him. If not him, then who?"

Luxanna clenched her teeth, looking away from her professor as she picked at her lips.

"If you're so intent on defying him, I'm not gonna stop you. Had something planned for you today, anyway."

"Hmm?"

"I'll show you later; got it locked up in the dungeons."

"It?"

Moody shook his head with a smirk, refusing to elaborate. "I'll show you later. Go, you'll be late for class."

"Alright."

Luxanna closed the door behind her. Her shivers had subsided; the anger had been swallowed down and folded over like a piece of cardboard into a neat square, waiting patiently in the corner of her mind. She sat through Transfiguration in a haze, her leg shaking as she stared out of the window so that she didn't notice when Professor McGonagall approached with a look of admonition on her face.

"The task, Miss Black, was to vanish the newt, not injure it beyond repair…" she said sternly, with just a hint of disappointment. "Don't think I haven't noticed your lack of concentration recently."

Alex shot her a sympathetic look once they exited the classroom—one that somehow made her feel even worse—before quickly striding away. "I'll see you in Potions! Gotta do something real quick!"

Too discouraged to reply, Luxanna trudged along with her bag flung limply over her elbow.

"Luksss..."

She whipped around, her heart in her throat. Frost?

"Here," Frost said, lightly grazing her ear.

"Huh? How'd you get in there?" asked Luxanna, her hand pulling away from her hair, Frost now inside her palm.

"I snuck in through your robesss."

"You were here the whole time? Wait… You were here while I talked to Professor Moody, weren't you? Listening in…You're... you're..." Luxanna grasped for an adequate insult—Unbelievable? Horrible? Annoying?—but Frost cut her off.

"You should be glad I wasss… Quickly, in there." Frost motioned with her tiny head towards a bathroom. "We have to talk."

Luxanna leant against the bathroom door, sighing in exasperation. "What do you want?"

"When you asked Professor Moody about how he'd met your father, he mentioned his brother..."

"Yes, I know. So what?"

"Ssso... If Moody was in his sixth year when your father started, he had to have finished Hogwartsss by the time that Regulus did. He couldn't have known him."

"I know, Frost, I corrected him."

"In that case how did he know the name?"

"What?"

"How did he know the name of your father's youngest brother, Regulus?"

"Look, Professor Moody's got a lot on his mind, he probably forgot what year he was in."

"No. He didn't forget. He hass the details down perfectly."

"How do you know?" asked Luxanna, her eyes greeting the ceiling.

"Because I was there," said Frost quietly.

Luxanna clicked her tongue. "Frost, come on..."

It was a long time ago; Frost's memory was likely as muddled as Moody's.

"Also... I also went ahead and checked the school recordsss."

"Well then maybe he heard of Regulus elsewhere. We're a rather renowned family, you know."

"No."

"Then what?"

"He's lying about something."

Luxanna arrived a few minutes early to the dungeons to find Professor Snape alone, hunched over some paperwork at his desk and looking rather more ill-tempered than usual. She walked straight over to him and politely apologised for missing his class last week.

"Don't let it happen again," was his curt reply.

Luxanna let out a breath she didn't know she was holding and took her usual seat at the front, shivering slightly at the coldness of the classroom.

"Today"—Snape pointed his wand at the blackboard—"we will be learning how to brew the Draught of Peace. You will need the following ingredients." He tapped the board and words unveiled themselves. "Make sure to pay attention; this will come up in your O. . Begin."

"Add three stirs..." Alex was whispering some fifteen minutes later. "...clockwise or anti-clockwise? Lux? Clockwise or—"

"Silence," demanded Snape. Luxanna made a clockwise motion with her finger from behind her cauldron.

"Thanks... And the quills?"

Luxanna sighed and handed over her own portion of neatly powdered Porcupine quills to him.

Her concentration was wavering thanks to Alex and the wretched bundle of Ravenclaw girls from the back, who kept on whispering and giggling throughout the lesson (safely out of Snape's earshot); once or twice, she was sure she heard the name 'Potter,' muttered. Clearly, Flitwick had already informed the Ravenclaws about the ball.

Alex wasn't doing too well, but Luxanna deduced that it would be too risky to help; sitting at the front table straight under Snape's large nose meant that he was privy to their every breath and move. It was never a problem for Luxanna who preferred to keep her mouth shut during lessons either way. Alex on the other hand...

"Lux... Lux... What now?"

"Mister Dankworth..." came Snape's deadly voice. "If you deem conversation more important than my lesson, you are welcome to leave. However, know that it will cost Slytherin 50 points. I'll be taking 10 now for sheer imprudence. And am I correct in assuming that the condition of your draught will do nothing to rectify that?"

"Nice one, Dankworth," whispered Selwyn, and Snape immediately fixed her with his glare.

After a lengthy period of stirring, prodding and chopping up ingredients, Luxanna's thoughts drifted back to the conversation in the bathroom earlier, and she found that she could do nothing to suppress the anxiety that rose with every fearful idea that her mind presented to her. What could Professor Moody be lying about? She soon found herself in a daze of sorts—a stupor, like watching the scene from another person's perspective; her hands were not her own, but somebody else's.

With the giggling of Ravenclaw girls, Alex's constant rambling and the fumes emanating from her cauldron making her feel almost drunk, Luxanna did not realise that she was pouring nearly an entire bottle of Hellebore syrup into her draught.

The effect was disastrous: the liquid bubbled wildly for a few seconds, then it quickly began to solidify, sending white tendrils of vapour skywards. With an ear-piercing crack, it exploded in a puff of white powder and shards of a glass-like substance, covering the table, Snape, the students, and every inch of the dungeon in the thick, sticky grey-white smog.

The sound of Snape's furious yelling and the students' screeches brought Luxanna out of her stupor. Looking up, she saw what had to have been Snape's white, angry face glaring down at her through the fog.

"Out! OUT! NOW!" he was telling her. "GET OUT! AND STAY THERE!"

Without a word, and without even getting her bag, Luxanna scrambled out of the classroom. In the distance, she could hear Selwyn's maniacal laughter. When she looked down she saw that her hands were trembling once more, all the emotions threatening to unfold.

Luxanna sank to the floor of the empty corridor with her head between her knees, breathing in and out deeply. She stayed like that for some time, taking comfort in her arms and her still quivering hands. Slowly, she got to her feet. Her face was flushed, her breathing heavy. She leant on the door, listening to Snape's rant about classroom safety and 'having to deal with your lack of discipline.' It took her some time to regain her composure.

"The Headmaster wishes me to inform you," he soon announced in a low, monotone drawl, "that a certain... formality will be held in the school the following week." At the word, 'formality' he sounded as though he was about to be sick. "The Yule Ball—an ultimately objectionable occasion—is nonetheless a traditional part of the Triwizard Tournament. Students of fourth year and above will be expected to attend. There will be a dance, and—" he suddenly noticed Luxanna, who was slouching against the door. "... You'll be for it, Black," he said through gritted teeth, snapping the door shut on her with a wave of his wand.

"However," his voice trailed off, "do not even dare to think that this will be an excuse for you to disobey the rules and act like idiots..."

Luxanna stalked away from the classroom and farther down the corridor, lost in thought once again. The dungeons seemed more dark and forbidding than ever, now painted so by her own fearful mind. There was a slight draft; a chill that seemed to be blowing through the cracks in the walls, disturbing the lit torches and creeping up Luxanna's spine, making her shiver. The only sound in the deserted corridors were the whistling wind and Luxanna's echoing footsteps. Otherwise, silence reigned.

And then, a distant door flew open with a loud slam and Luxanna jumped, gooseflesh spreading across her arms.

As she rounded a corner, she could hear muffled laughter coming from one of the empty classrooms. Straightening her badge, Luxanna composed herself and edged towards the noise. She felt it her duty as a prefect to investigate. No, that was not it—she didn't want fear to get the better of her. Absolutely not.

You're in control… she disciplined herself. You are in control.

"Hey, you're not supposed to be here yet."

"Huh?"

Behind her, one of the Weasley twins had their wand pointed at her. He muttered an incantation and suddenly she was pushed inside the empty room, the door snapping shut behind her.

"Let me out right now!" she screamed, growing increasingly panicked. The room was dark, except for a singular torch that hung on the wall, illuminating the dusty tabletops and chairs and...

"What..." she breathed, her throat constricted at the sight before her.

There, on the ground in the middle of the room was a body. A body belonging to either one of the Weasley twins. His red hair was matted with blood, his limbs were crooked in an odd position and his eyes were wide open, glazed with terror.

Luxanna had to fight back the urge to vomit. She felt a trickle of cold sweat roll down her back. Her mouth hung open; a scream stuck in her throat, paralysing her.

Before she could even process the situation, there was a sudden crack of noise and the body had vanished, leaving only a shadow behind. Luxanna's gaze was fixated on the spot where he had been. The air in the room seemed suddenly heavy and charged with a suffocating, nauseating feeling of dread, as though she had been swallowed whole by an invisible monster.

No, no, no...

Her eyes darted around as she sought an exit, but she could no longer see the door; the torch had been blown out and Luxanna had been plunged into darkness. More than darkness—it was a void of unbridled emptiness. She could feel her own heartbeat in her ears, making her head feel faint. She began to sway slightly, reaching out her arms in search of anything to grab hold of, but her fingers only met emptiness.

Then a voice, as cold as ice and as harsh as steel, filled her ears.

"Luxanna Black," it rasped. "Your time has come."

It was Him. She knew it.

"There can only be one..." He was saying. "Only one heir... And it is I..."

"You'll be wise to remember that..."

"I will... dispose of you now," he offered sweetly; mercifully.

Then the voice changed; this one was unfamiliar, but she had the strangest feeling that she had been hearing it all her life.

"...exactly the same as he is! A threat!"

"For the good of the community, she must die. Understand that it is the only way. The right way."

"You deserve it, after all..." said the first voice.

The voices were all echoing and overlapping, jumbled up, bleeding into one another. The result was an indecipherable, head-splitting gush of noise that threatened her sanity. Luxanna was on the ground, shaking with fear and trembling from the shock.

She had never known anything like this. Never felt so threatened, so powerless, so helpless.

"Kill her! Kill her NOW!"

"How dare you..."

"...I've made my decision!"

"Let her die... LET HER DIE..." said He. "...I am the heir, I AM..."

"That is all..."

"Die..."

And with nowhere to escape, Luxanna surrendered to the darkness.

The sun had set, and all the students and staff were at the Great Hall for dinner. Luxanna, however, was still laying on the hospital bed, lost in a never-ending nightmare of pure fear for hours. She tossed and turned, whispering incoherent words, her face glistening in sweat. Gasping for air, she woke up feeling suffocated and breathless.

Alex, who was asleep on the chair next to her jolted awake at the sound of her heavy breathing. "You're awake. Thank god!"

"What…" she grimaced, clutching at her head, "what happened…"

"One of the Weasleys… He told me that you fainted."

"Weasley—" Like a slap in the face, it all came flooding back to her. The body of one of the Weasley twins bloodied and lifeless on the floor, the darkness, the terror—it was where the nightmares began. Luxanna grabbed Alex as she began hyperventilating.

"Alex, is he alright!? I saw him lifeless on the floor! Did you bring him to the hospital wing as well? Why don't I see him here? Alex, is he dead?! Down in the dungeons, he was on the floor, he—he was dead, Alex!"

"The Weasleys are fine! They're okay! They are the ones who brought you here, Madam Pomfrey said you got a nasty shock—you were screaming and crying, we're still not sure why…"

Luxanna was confused for a moment, replaying the scene in her mind. She didn't remember screaming. Truthfully, she didn't remember much at all; her memories all began with the cold, piercing darkness and ended in the same. All she knew was fear.

Oh…

"It was a Boggart…" whispered Luxanna, her head buried in her hands. Of course. That's what Professor Moody was talking about earlier… 'Got it locked up in the dungeons,' he told her. She must have gone there after Snape's class and stumbled upon it accidentally. But wait… Luxanna's hands shook wildly. Wait… The darkness, the whispers…that was her fear materialised. And… and if she didn't remember any of it… and the Weasleys found her, then how much did they hear? What if she said something in Parseltongue, what if—

"Hey…" whispered Alex, putting a consolatory hand on her shoulder.

Luxanna slapped his hand away, took her wand from the side table, wrenched the covers off her body, and made for the exit.

"Lux! Madam Pomfrey said you had to stay!"

As she stepped out of the hospital wing, she noticed an audience approaching. It was Triss Selwyn and her toadies: Rowle and Travers. They were leaning against the stair railing, anticipating her arrival with gleeful smirks on their faces.

"Well, well, well… the princess is finally awake!" Selwyn applauded. "You should've seen how your boyfriend carried you all the way up here. Just like a bride!"

"Some strong muscles on that one. Must be all the manual labour," said Travers.

"My heart was melting!" added Rowle. "Precious, just precious."

The girls followed Selwyn on cue in her laughter, their voices like nails on a chalkboard to Luxanna. Having had enough of everything, she lunged and seized Selwyn by her robes and was about to give her a well-deserved punch in her mousy little face if Alex hadn't run after her and grabbed her by the waist to stop her from doing anything stupid.

Selwyn regained her balance and adjusted her robes as she looked reproachfully at Luxanna. "Let's go girls, before we get attacked by this feral beast…"

Awoken before dawn by her now recurring nightmares, Luxanna spent the morning in bed, still shaken up about what had happened. Her mind offered no respite, and now that contacting her father was out of the question, she was completely backed into a corner. The scene felt oddly familiar; her dormmates sleeping, the morning light seeping in from the lake above, and the dreadful feeling in the pit of her stomach.

No.

She would not go through this again.

In fact, the knowledge that she'd been in this very same place before was more than devastating—it was humiliating, and she had, like a fool, allowed herself to succumb to it. She still hadn't punished the Weasleys for what they did to her that night, when they crossed a line she didn't even know existed.

Luxanna was going to have her retaliation one way or another.

The following hours were spent in consideration as Luxanna struggled to devise more and more devious methods of torture she wished to inflict upon the Weasleys, the silence interrupted only by Selwyn's loud snores.

Then the idea occurred to her.

It was nearly seven o'clock and Triss Selwyn would be waking up any second. Luxanna pulled on her dressing gown and scrambled out of bed and into the bathroom, barring herself into one of the empty stalls.

For this to work, she needed it to appear genuine.

She had a hard time remembering the last time she had cried—actually cried. The idea was so bizarre to her that her first thought was to feel foolish for even considering it.

Luxanna held herself back, taking long, deep breaths. She felt her heart constrict in her chest as she searched her mind for memories that would draw the tears out, finally settling on a picturesque scene from her childhood: a pale winter morning spent huddled by the fire with a bowl of Christmas crackers and a picture book in her lap. Her mother was making coffee in the kitchen and the walls of the room were a bright yellow. All of this before her father had come from England and told them they had to leave—no, to return to their real home, forever stripping her of a happy childhood. Luxanna knew only one home and it was the one in Italy. She would always feel like a stranger in this land.

How soppy... she thought to herself, ridiculed by the idea that the one memory capable of bringing forth the tears had to be this cliché.

Quickly, as she heard Selwyn enter the bathroom, Luxanna forced a sob out of her chest while she still had the chance; before the memory had escaped her.

"Black? Is that you in there?" came Selwyn's voice. It was clear by the tone that Luxanna was the last person she expected to hear crying in the stall like some lovesick schoolgirl.

"I'm just having a pee, go away!" yelled Luxanna, knowing there was no better way to get the girl's attention than by telling her to leave.

She knocked on the door, clearly alarmed by Luxanna's erratic behaviour. "Open up!"

"No!"

"What happened? Black—what's going on?"

"It was George..." croaked Luxanna, met with a wide-eyed Triss Selwyn; she had pulled the door open, probably too intrigued to miss out on seeing Luxanna in a state of distress.

Except that her next words made Luxanna reconsider that. "Oh, Merlin... A-are you okay? Did that arsehole hurt you?! Is that why you were in the hospital?"

There was actual concern in her voice. It almost made Luxanna reconsider her next statement—almost. "Yes, actually… He uhm… He…" Her breath was coming out in short gasps, carefully sprinkling a sob here and there.

"No… Sit down, love. Tell me everything."