Chapter 14: Ravenclaw

As it turned out, it seemed as though Voldemort had cleaned up after himself, and when Ivy returned to the same classrooms that had previously been ravaged the following morning, she found them back to normal, completely tidy, as though nothing had happened. She'd decided against returning to the mirror of Erised. Falling asleep that night had been a difficult experience, with her restless self pacing up and down the dormitory so often that when she awoke, she saw that she had barely slept for two hours.

The rest of the Christmas holiday saw Ivy spending a lot of time trying to figure out Voldemort, with pictures and questions pinned to her bedroom wall, connected by red string. She barely spent any time outside of the dormitory at all, and when she did, she was on edge and restless. She snapped one night just before new year when Draco ventured to ask her if she was okay.

"I'm fine!" she exclaimed, more to herself than anyone else, and then, realising she had shouted, she muttered, "I'm fine,"

The Invisibility cloak sat abandoned beneath her bed, gathering dust.

Eventually, all the students returned to Hogwarts, and it was not long after that that lessons resumed. Ivy spent many short hours in the common room, playing wizard chess with Draco (who was terrible) and, when he would visit, Ron (who was nothing short of amazing), or else catching up with homework in one of the good armchairs by the fire, while listening to the sounds of everyone else fading away as it got later and later.

Before long, though, hers, and everyone else's, attention was focused on the upcoming Quidditch match, Ravenclaw versus Slytherin. Slytherin had won the first game of the season, and Ravenclaw had battered Hufflepuff.

Flint had become near insufferable in the lead-up to the match, demanding harder and more efficient practice, much to the annoyance of everyone on the team. Ravenclaw was, admittedly, a much fiercer opponent than Gryffindor at Quidditch, at least when Gryffindor had a somewhat poor seeker. Nonetheless, nobody on the team had taken kindly to the extra exercise.

"Marcus, mate, what are you playin' at?" asked one of the beaters, after a particularly stormy training session, "You're gonna chop our arms off!"

"If you want to explain to Snape why we took all of our sessions off and were promptly slaughtered by Ravenclaw, then be my guest, Derrick! But if not, I suggest you sort out Bole's arm!"

When the match eventually did come, it was stormy, and not ideal weather to fly in. It was interrupted a few times due to flying injuries as neither team could see very well at all, and, when Ravenclaw narrowly won 210 - 180, the crowd took no more than three minutes to funnel out into the castle, even through the bottlenecks formed by the two doors leading to the Quidditch pitch and Hogwarts itself.

Afterwards, Ravenclaw remained in first on the leaderboard and Slytherin was still in second. By some miracle, probably Hermione's continued rule-following, Gryffindor had clawed itself up to a third place, just ahead of Hufflepuff. Ivy wondered if that would remain after the round that the two teams would share.

When she returned to the Slytherin common room, it was pleasantly quiet. There was no party or anything, as they hadn't won, but nobody was eying her angrily, as though the terrible rain was somehow her fault, which she saw as a good, if minor, positive.

Following this loss for Slythrin, Ivy's life at Hogwarts more or less reverted to the status quo. Time spent with Draco, Ron, Rose and Hermione, check. Hatred for Theo, check. And, of course, the weekly (or so) visits to Hagrid's hut.

She had started out only going to and from the hut by herself for a few months, before being joined by Draco, and soon afterwards, Rose and Ron. After the troll, which Hermione had thankfully managed to avoid gaining any trauma from, she had also begun attending the late evenings, though she brought with her homework so as to not spend the time entirely unproductively. Hagrid, of course, had been overjoyed that Ivy's extended friend group were now just about nearly constantly visiting him, and they had all gotten used to each other's company. After a few months of every new visitor trying his rock cakes once and never again, Hagrid had dropped the recipe, now just offering them pumpkin juice whenever they came without supper. They were also accustomed to when people would get there. Hermione would arrive around half an hour before everyone else, which no one objected to, while the two twins would arrive just on time. Ron and Draco would inevitably be ten minutes late.

It was on one of these evenings, sat around Hagrid's roaring fireplace, as Hermione absent-mindedly petted Fang's head and Ron's pet rat, Scabbers, tried in vain to escape through one of his windows, that Ivy was suddenly struck by the recollection of another dog, much larger, much scarier, and with two more heads than the average.

"Um… Hagrid? Could I trust you to not repeat any of this conversation to any students… or teachers… around school?"

"Hm?" he asked, drinking some Pumpkin juice, though Ivy got the impression that he had heard her perfectly, "You haven't done anything bad, have ya, Ivy?" he asked, shooting a nervous eye around the room, trying to gauge the moods of everyone else present.

"No!" she exclaimed, "Well, kind of? Look. You know when Draco, Rose and I had detention with you… and we saw the creature… drinking…"

"Yeah!" he said quickly, "What of it?"

"Well… I just…" she breathed in, deeply, "We got that detention because we were caught sneaking around after hours,"

The half-giant nodded, slowly, "I know why you were there, Ivy,"

"Yes, well," she mumbled, "While we were going around, we… might have accidentally found the third floor corridor… on the right?"

With a frankly ear-splitting crash, Hagrid's glass fell to the ground and shattered into shards, spewing all over the room. Hermione fearfully gasped the repairing charm, staring at Ivy as she did so.

"We saw… a three headed dog there, and it was on top of a trapdoor,"

Hagrid sat frozen for a second, before coming back to his senses, and deciding to take the situation lightly.

"Well… you survived didn' ya? You and Fluffy…"

"Fluffy!?" exclaimed Draco, incredulously, "What the heck do you mean, Fluffy? That thing has a name?"

"Well, I had to call it something, didn't I?" he asked. "I thought it went quite nicely with his personality!"

Rose facepalmed.

"Look, that's not the important bit," said Ivy, quickly, "The point is, what was- Fluffy guarding? Or was it just a secret den where you and the teachers hang out during the holidays?" she added, sarcastically.

"Don't be cheeky," he snapped, before sighing, "Well, you're one for one. Fluffy is indeed guarding something, but you best not go looking and get yourself killed, and that goes for the rest of you! If you end up as bloody- oh, nevermind. No matter. What's down there is none of your business! That's strictly between Professor Dumbledore and Nicholas Flamel!"

"Nicholas Flamel?" asked Hermione, sitting up immediately.

Hagrid jumped, and then sagged, "I shouldn't a' said that. I should not have said that,"

"Who's that?" asked Ivy, who was staring at him unblinkingly.

"Oh shush! All of you! Get out! I won't be having no more snooping around from the lot of ya! The fact that you managed to even find Fluffy in the first place should be enough to prove to anyone that you can't just go looking around for things! You'll die! You're only eleven! Out! Out!"

And with that, the five of them were shooed out of Hagrid's hut, onto the dim grounds.

She had a name now.

Nicholas Flamel.

Couldn't she catch a break from the mysteries?

Looked like she was in for another sleepless night.