"I don't understand... I studied the book, and I think I have the spell down; look..." I demonstrated it then, performing the movements with my wand aimed well away from Lockhart's luxuriously-haired head. "But it just won't work."

He fidgeted uneasily on the teachers desk he was leaning on. "Ah... when you say it didn't work... you wouldn't have tried it on any other... er... student, would you?"

"Oh no, of course not! I only tried it on the owls."

"The owls?"

I nodded, explaining as I put my wand back on its pocket: "I've been feeding three of them at the owlery for the past week, with chunks of bacon and such. One as a control, and the other two I tried to obliviate. But when I went to visit them yesterday they were all happy at seeing me; which... you know, it must mean they still remember me, no?"

"Ah! I think I see your mistake, Miss Sarramond," he said, stepping away from the desk and pacing back and forth, his fingers stroking his chin as if in deep thought. Meanwhile I restrained myself from letting out the loud sigh that was growing inside my chest, as I patiently waited for him to be done with his theatrics.

"Yes," he continued, "it took me many years to realise the truth of it, the unique secret behind memory charms."

"Which is...?"

He twirled in place to face the classroom's windows, for some reason. It looked suitably dramatic, though, the morning light shining on him, highlighting his silhouette. "That memory charms are not a science, but an art! And as such, emotion, feeling is the key to unlock all of their potential."

I rolled my eyes, taking advantage of him facing away from me. Okay, fine; if he wanted theatrics, two could play parts on that particular stage. I said: "But professor, sir... I don't think I understand what you mean? Could you please illuminate me?"

On any other Hogwarts' teacher that wouldn't have worked —especially not coming from me, of all people. But on Lockhart, who had never bothered to get a good grasp on my character to begin with... well, it turned out unabashed brown nosing was the key to unlocking his will to be helpful.

"Don't fret, girl, I can certainly help you! You see, when you performed the spell on those owls, what were you thinking of?"

"The memory I wanted to remove, of course... so, I focused on the other times I'd fed them before."

He raised his finger. "Ah hah! That's the mistake many lesser wizards make! Listen to me now, dear girl: if you want a memory truly, fully erased, you must also focus on the emotions tied to it. You must remove them as well; otherwise the memory will leave a hole behind. Like a... a missing tooth! The vict– er... the subject will not know what was taken, but they will know something is missing. And what's worse: they might start searching for it."

"But the owls... then..."

"Exactly! You left them with their emotions intact! So they still felt happy at seeing you, even if they can't remember exactly why."

I scratched my head. "Oh! That's... actually helpful. Thank you, professor!"

"But of course, my dear!" he beamed. "Now, most of the Ministry's so-called obliviators will not bother with this. Too much hassle when applying a memory charm to a simple Muggle, you see; and so the subject will end up walking away with a void, a missing gap in their soul that they might notice, but can never fill. Not that this is a problem, as what can a Muggle do? Without any access to the magical world, they can't exactly go looking for clues, now can they? But if you were to obliviate a wizard or a witch instead... ah– I mean, theoretically, of course..."

He interrupted himself when the first students started filing into the classroom, quickly reverting back into his usual professor persona: "Now, time to start today's Defence class! Open your books on chapter ten..."

I went to sit on my usual desk, mulling over Lockhart's explanation and refraining from scratching my ankle. After two weeks of drawing daily circles on my skin it didn't hurt anymore, but it did feel itchy —perhaps because it was healing, or perhaps as a side-effect of the circle altering the flow of magic through my body. The skin was also coarser where the strange shadow figure had grabbed me, a tad less smooth than in the rest of my leg.

That was something that I suspected wouldn't change anytime soon, as Madam Pomfrey had told me the day before that she couldn't detect any lingering traces of the curse anymore, and as so these would be my very last days of the treatment. She had touched my ankle, which meant she knew how my skin felt different there, but she hadn't offered to restore it to its previous smoothness. And I hadn't asked; no need to force her to state the obvious.

Despite that, I was in a good mood. Maybe because going back to a semblance of normalcy after the fear that I'd need to have my leg amputated was exhilarating, or perhaps because Dumbledore dealing with the whole Chamber of Secrets' situation himself had indeed taken a weight off my shoulders.

The only snag to my happy outlook was the girl who sat down next to me, opening her own textbook as Lockhart started the lecture for the day on the topic of ghouls —either oblivious or deliberately ignoring the bored yawns of my classmates. Like my ankle, my relationship with Tracey Davis had healed, but wasn't quite back to what it used to be. I had apologised to her for not telling them at first what happened during the Feast, and it seemed like my brief hospitalization had helped soften her stance. She didn't reply only with monosyllables anymore, at least, and all of us girls had reverted to our circle's usual routines once more.

And yet there was something changed, something bent out of shape that I couldn't quite put my finger on. It wasn't anything overt, like the festering anger or shouting matches of that day. No, it was subtler and under the surface, there in Tracey's body language when I sat next to her at the Great Hall, or in her eyes as we discussed the weekly assignments from Professor Flitwick. An undercurrent of... something. Mistrust? Sorrow? I wasn't sure.

I didn't know what to do, though, as I had already apologised once and bringing it out now into the open risked reopening those same wounds once more, which I didn't feel would help much. So instead I was attempting to be more forthcoming —within reason— and involve myself more with the girls' activities, now that I didn't have the second Harry Potter book plot to worry about.

To that end I had resumed my Flying practises with Tracey from last year, disguising it as an attempt at getting her help to improve my skills at playing Quidditch, now that I had a new broomstick and all. In truth, I didn't give one flying shit about the sport, something that she probably was aware of; which maybe was precisely what helped the most, as it was evident the only reason I was subjecting myself to the experience was for Tracey's own sake. And so while dashing through the air and passing the quaffle between the two of us, she would mostly fall back into her old self. But that liveliness and those easy smiles, they simply melted away the moment our feet were back on the ground.

Still, it did seem like the way forward, and the other side to that was that I could also try to involve the girls into my own activities, so I took advantage when Lockhart turned his back on us to draw a sketch of a ghoul on the blackboard and whispered to them: "Did you see that announcement today on the notice board? About the club?"

"The Duelling Club?" asked Tracey. "Why? Are you planning to go?"

"Sure! Sounds like fun, no?"

She gave me a one shoulder shrug; then, after a beat she added: "I guess I could go too."

Victory! I beamed at her and then turned to my other side: "What about you two?"

"I don't think so," replied Daphne. "I don't find duelling to be much of a ladylike sport, you see."

"Using magic to snot the shit out of people? What's unladylike about that?"

She gave me a subtle smile, but still she shook her head and said: "I'm sorry, I just don't think I would enjoy it myself. I'd rather get up to date with our Astronomy essays."

"Ugh, thanks for that reminder," I muttered, sighing. And sure, her excuse was weak as shit. I could have easily argued that we had an entire week until the assignments were due, and that I knew she had already completed most of them. Or that the current International Freestyle Duelling Champion was Penelope de Camponegro —you know, a woman— and that nobody would ever dare to call her unladylike, if only out of fear of being cursed into oblivion.

But the truth was that, while the wizarding world could be surprisingly progressive in what regarded to gender roles —there had been quite a few female Ministers of Magic across the years, compared to the whopping total of one female Muggle Prime Minister in the same time... and that was Thatcher, which I wasn't even sure counted as human in the first place— the pure-blood families' old-fashioned ways extended to stuff other than mere blood prejudice.

In the rotten minds of some of the more influential families in the wizarding world, a reputable woman's place was firmly at home; hopefully birthing child after child to help repopulate magical Britain after the war. You know, sort of like Molly Weasley did. Which might have seemed odd at first blush, because the portly matriarch of the Weasley clan seemed to be the polar opposite to prim Daphne Greengrass and her ilk; except that, no, not really. After all, under all that chaos and down to Earth cosiness it was easy to forget that the Weasleys were pure-blood too.

Greengrass seemed to aim a tad higher than that, though, her self-professed image as the perfect magical heiress leaving no room for uncomely stuff such as wrinkled robes or knots in her hair. So it was no wonder any sort of violent activity would also be out of the picture.

And while I could have argued against that too, about how she shouldn't allow those strictures to constrain her, to limit who she could be and what she could do... in the end I was weary of challenging her, of opening yet another battle front when our group had not yet finished healing from the last one.

"What about you, Sally?" I asked instead.

Perks scratched her chin: "I'll be there, I believe? Just to see what it's like. Who do you think is behind it? It didn't say in the announcement."

"I would hope for your sake that it's somebody who knows what they're doing," commented Daphne.

Right. I shrugged and pretended ignorance; Lockhart had been smart for once not to mention in his announcement that he was the one organizing the club, and if the rumour spread that it was his brainchild all along I wouldn't expect that many people to actually assist at all. After almost four months of him teaching us, most students were thoroughly cured of whatever illusions they might have had about the famous wizard and his exploits.

Not everyone, though, as from the corner of my eye I could glimpse a couple of the Gryffindor girls paying rapt attention as the professor went on a long-winded tangent about the ghoul that had once lived in his second girlfriend's attic, and how he had bested it by luring it away with cheese.

Did ghouls actually like cheese? Who the hell knew. And that was the issue with Lockhart, wasn't it? That only God could tell whether what came out of his mouth were true stories, or just more of his lies and exaggerations.

And... was that how Tracey had begun to see me now, after catching me on so many lies and half-truths? As somebody who you could never trust was being honest?

I didn't want to think too deeply about it. And well... at least I was actually competent; and while inflated, my ego wasn't nearly at quite the same stadium size of that of Lockhart's... so I reckoned I couldn't be doing that bad, could I?

After the lecture had ended and as we abandoned the classroom, a Gryffindor first year approached me —to the bewilderment of pretty much everyone around us, lions and snakes alike.

"Uh... Sarramond?" he asked, his voice not trembling at all under the combined gaze of the two houses. Gryffindors and their stupid bravery.

"Creevey, right?" I asked, as if the oversized camera on his hands wasn't a dead giveaway. "I have your essay on History of Magic right here." I turned to the girls and added with a shrug: "I'm expanding my network of influence to the other houses too; go ahead, I'll catch up with you."

That wasn't entirely truthful —yeah, yeah, I know. Look, I was trying. Besides, this time it was for a good reason— but it seemed to do the trick: maybe because it wasn't the first —or the second, or even third— time a firstie accosted me out of the blue thanks to my homework sharing scheme, so they were used to the sight of me bartering exercises and essays away for galleons and sickles and other goodies. It was just that the firsties in question tended to favour greener robes.

I took the short boy a few steps away from the thick of the crowd, then waved the essay in front of his nose. "Here it is. But first, do you have...?"

"The pictures? Sure!"

He handed me a handful of photographs and I examined them closely, pretending to have any critical eye at all. It wasn't easy, because I wasn't an expert in either photography or art, and as such I hadn't the faintest idea about framing or composition. Much less what that even meant in the case of magical pictures, which didn't like standing still any longer than strictly necessary.

"Not bad... not bad," I mused aloud. "Oh, I see you followed my advice!"

"Yes! That one was challenging to get right, because of the movement."

"What you mean? They all move."

"Oh, that's just the effect of the magical developing solution. But in that one, she was moving quite fast herself as I took the picture!"

"And that's more difficult?"

"Of course! You have to find the proper shutter speed, don't you? And it's much harder to keep the picture in focus."

"Ah, sure... the focus... speed... thing. Fine, I'll take these as payment. Here you go," I said, handing him the essay. "Oh, and Creevey, are you going to the Duelling Club later today?"

He became suddenly guarded. I figured my reputation on violent matters must have reached him somehow, because he replied: "I'm... not really good at duelling."

"Well, you should work on that." With the war still not even in the horizon, it was easy to forget how critical that skill would become in the coming years. But getting the girls in my circle to practise their defensive spells was troublesome enough, so there wasn't much I could do about the Hogwarts population at large; and Dumbledore hiring people such as Lockhart to teach us Defence surely wasn't helping. "But I guess you won't really need to fight, if you only go as a reporter. Who knows, you might end up with one or two interesting pictures. And I bet Harry Potter will be there, too."

"Oh! Do you think he will? Uhm... perhaps I could go too, just to take pictures."

"Let me know if you snatch any new ones I might be interested in, if you want a galleon or two for them," I replied, hiding the pictures he had handed me inside my Defence book and rushing to meet up with the girls. "See you!"

I didn't know if baiting him with the name of the boy who he so obviously idolized had worked, but later that day, when I entered the Great Hall alongside Tracey and Perks for the first session ever of the Duelling Club, he was indeed there. He was tucked away into the furthest corner from the raised stand and a bit hunched over —as if trying to make himself as small a target as possible, not to be noticed and challenged by any of the would-be duellists.

Not that people were paying him any attention, though. Upon the stand —which I suspected was simply one of our usual dining tables, transfigured— Lockhart was strutting around and making noises, observed closely by a darkly Snape —who seemed to be seriously weighting the pros and cons of a long vacation in Azkaban.

I ignored the two men to look at the attending students. Draco Malfoy, Goyle, Crabbe and Parkinson were all there, as was Zabini —looking already bored out of his mind— and of course most of the Gryffindors, including the Golden Trio. Ron and Harry were busy staring at Lockhart, but I noticed Hermione had turned to observe me, her expression unreadable.

The last two weeks of Potions had been an unnerving experience. It all began two days after my hospitalisation: I had lied and told her the reason I'd missed the Hallowe'en Feast and spent a full day under observation was because I came down with a bad case of stomach flu, then pretended I didn't hear her question about all those points the headmaster had mysteriously awarded Slytherin the very next day. And after that, our shared lessons had been plagued by these sort of long pensive stares and awkward, stilted conversations.

Which by this point I was starting to understand was as per usual with the frizzy haired girl. I had the feeling Hermione liked it best when things —and people, too— were clearly labelled and sorted into their proper boxes, and she probably resented me for being so hard to pin down; and for withholding the very same information she clearly needed in order to figure the puzzle out. What had happened the night of Hallowe'en? Who was this Heir of Slytherin? Why did Dumbledore declared it a closed case that quickly? Why the points? To her it was clear by now that I must know some of the answers to those questions; answers that I wasn't sharing, which was probably driving her up the wall.

Whatever. I wanted to have a cordial relationship with her, but it wasn't exactly my job to assuage her ego. I figured it would pass in due time anyway, probably by the time she returned from our winter break. So I ignored her, turning my attention to the drama on the main stage instead: Snape and Lockhart had just bowed to each other, raised their wands, and then Snape cast his Disarming Charm —with way, way too much intention baked into it— at our Defence professor. Lockhart and his wand parted ways, both flying away in opposite directions; there was the flash of a camera, and Lockhart crashed bodily into the wall among our cheers.

"Wicked!" I shouted, grinning like a madwoman. Because this, right here, it was something I rarely got: the chance to live through something I knew —a scene I remembered quite well from the films— without there being any danger, any unfathomable threat to ruin it and worry about. No basilisks or Quirrells, no trolls or acromantulas today. Simply the opportunity of seeing Snape publicly humiliate Gilderoy Lockhart in front of half the school.

And of seeing Potter reveal himself as a Parselmouth; that too. And being there, it felt something like being a tourist, in a sense: like the first time they'd taken me to London proper and I'd seen the Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, back when I was eight. It was a place that I recognised from both my lives, and that I was finally seeing in the flesh —or in the stone and brick, as it were. It had a hint of the surreal, that something from the telly and picture books could exist in real life too.

I should have been inured to it by now, living in Hogwarts and all that; but it wasn't quite the same. While Hogwarts had indeed been in that same category during my first weeks as a student last year, it only felt... homely by now. Perhaps I knew the castle and its many corridors and staircases too well already. Now, it was the recognizable events and people that elicited that same vague oddness instead, that sense of the impossibly familiar mixed with the new.

But while I wasn't stressed or worried, that didn't mean I would get to witness it all passively either, since the adults promptly separated us into pairs and told us to practise the charm we had just witnessed in each other —something that I didn't remember from the film, actually.

Not that it was any problem to my enjoyment, as they paired me against that girl Lavender Brown from Gryffindor —who fidgeted in place and bit her lip as we bowed to each other. She was aiming her wand directly at me rather than at the ceiling —a foul, actually, but whatever— and I promptly sent it flying away with a quick 'Expelliarmus!'

Because yeah, of course I had been training the Disarming Charm ahead of time.

My execution wasn't without flaws however, as according to the textbooks I read the opponents' wand was supposed to end up flying towards you in a nice, predictable arc so that you could snatch it off the air. I was probably pushing too much magic into the spell, but it was a delicate balance to get right, since falling short and not pushing enough risked having the opposite effect: leaving the wand intact, and still in the opponent's hands.

I got closer on the second try, and on the third her wand did fly in a nice arc, only not towards me.

I could see how the girl was getting ever more frustrated with every attempt, though, and things went heated on our fourth bout: I misjudged, and my spell failed to dislodge her wand. Brown quickly recovered and shot a jinx at me —rather than a Disarming charm, you know, the spell we were supposed to practice. Lucky for me her aim was off —her eyes focused on the tip of her own wand rather than on me, a common novice mistake apparently— and I simply sidestepped it and replied with a nasty stinging jinx of my own.

"Ow!" she exclaimed, letting her wand drop and shaking her hand, where the jinx had just hit her.

I smirked: "That counts too."

She stared at me, her face a strange mix of watery eyes and a furious snarl. Then she snapped: "You are a horrible person!" before picking up her wand, turning and walking away, leaving me without a sparring partner.

And feeling... a bit conflicted, actually. Because yeah... rude. But also, somewhere deep in my fore-memories I had this faint knowledge that this girl, Lavender Brown, was meant to be one of the casualties of the Battle of Hogwarts. And wasn't she killed by that werewolf bloke, whatever his name was?

My eyes followed her as she walked up to the edge of the group, only to stand there, her back to the rest of us, her arms crossed and her gaze down. I observed her in silence: the girl that would not live past eighteen, who would never marry or hold a job; the girl who wouldn't grow old.

And then there was this ugly, twisted part of me that could only think: no wonder she will die, if this is what her skills at duelling are like.

I silenced that voice savagely, then took a tentative step towards her, unsure as to what to do next. Thinking that perhaps I could offer her an olive branch of sorts, showing her how to perform the spell properly or something. But I never got to find out, because right then Lockhart shouted "Stop! Stop!" and everybody's attention returned to the adults, who were just breaking apart the many chaotic skirmishes that had emerged across the group of students.

"You good?" I asked Tracey and Perks, deciding to approach my housemates instead.

"I got the charm to work!" exclaimed Tracey, beaming; right before she remembered that she was supposed to be cross with me, and her face returned to neutral. "Yes, we're good."

I hesitated for a moment, but then nodded at her before returning my gaze to the two teachers, who were now talking about having a volunteer pair up on the stand —displaying a surprising lack of awareness of what the word volunteer even meant. I felt a nervous sense of anticipation at the scene that I knew would soon play: Draco Malfoy causing Harry Potter to accidentally reveal his snake-ish, dark gift for everyone to witness. And sure enough, Snape's eyes roved across the gathered students, until they landed on the Boy Who Lived.

He said: "How about Potter and..." his eyes then snapped towards me "...Sarramond?"

Well, fuck.

I closed my eyes and let out a sigh, before slowly advancing towards the stand with all the willingness of a condemned inmate. Lockhart was busy demonstrating Potter some spell or whatever, so I approached my head of house.

I said: "Um... perhaps you should choose Malfoy instead? I know he really wanted to fight Potter... sir. Besides, they are both boys and I–"

"Silence! Get up here, now!" he ordered, pointing down at the stand.

Right. So much for that.

I climbed onto the stand, and waited for Potter to do the same, all the while cursing my unlucky stars. I couldn't simply enjoy the first meetup of the Duelling Club, witness the scene from the sidelines. Of course not; my very presence was a plot-derailing whirlwind, it seemed like. Everything I approached I turned out of whack.

The problem, of course, was that I didn't know whatever snake summoning spell Malfoy had used in my fore-memories. I had never bothered to go looking for it, judging its applications too narrow for my liking. And now I was busy going through the ramifications of this simple thing, the changes this stupid deviation would cause.

Because sure, the plot for this year should not be an issue anymore, so this should be okay... but what about the future? This connection between Harry Potter and Voldemort seemed like the kind of thing that the three heroes —and Dumbledore— should better be aware of. Without that piece of knowledge, it was possible they might commit a critical mistake in the years to come; it was possible the headmaster would never realise that Harry himself was a Horcrux.

Potter approached, and we both bowed to each other in silence. His expression showed a mix of worry and determination. I had no idea what mine would be showing. Panicked annoyance, perhaps.

So... what now? Was there anything I could do?

Not much to it, really. Without knowing the spell, I simply could not fill Draco's shoes, as much as that thought grated.

But... I could lose.

Yes! That could work. Throw the fight now, and Snape would be forced to volunteer Draco next. The bitter bat would never allow Potter to leave victorious, would he?

Okay, I could do that, even though the very idea losing on purpose went against my nature something fierce. Let it never be said I don't make sacrifices for the greater good, then: I relaxed my stance slightly, my wand aimed upwards, observing Harry's movements while Lockhart counted up to three. I had to make it believable.

The moment Lockhart said 'Three' I started performing the movements for the Disarming charm, of course. I committed to it, with the full intention of casting the spell. Only I was doing so... slightly slower than before, with Lavender Brown.

"Expelliarmus!" cried Harry, and a blast of magic hit my wand, which immediately went flying away.

And so it was that I entered the very important club of people who had been disarmed by Harry Potter. It was a club I was sure had a huge potential for growth, in the coming years.

That was immediately followed by the discovery that it irked me immensely to see my wand out of my control, on somebody else's hands —Seamus Finnigan, who picked it up from the floor where it had landed and handed it back to me. I snatched it back with a bit more force than necessary. I had counted on it, of course, but I couldn't help it; it took me back to that day, during the previous year.

I walked up to Snape then, ignoring the cheering coming from the Gryffindors in the room. I shrugged and said: "I'm sorry, sir; he was faster than me. But I heard Draco had a new spell he wanted to try on Potter? Perhaps he–"

"You take me for a fool?" he grumbled. Then he bent down, getting uncomfortably close to me, his black eyes boring into my skull as he whispered very matter-of-factly: "You better defeat Potter, you halfwit girl, unless you relish the idea of having detention with me every week for the remainder of the year."

That sobered me up pretty fast, my eyes going wide. It was likely he had realised I'd just thrown the fight, and from what I knew of the man... well, he probably wasn't bluffing with an idle threat. No, he would no-doubt follow through, the complete git.

"Again!" he shouted, silencing the Gryffindors and pretty much erasing Harry's relieved smile from sight. "Let's see what change a little motivation brings."

I closed my eyes, shook my head and finally turned to approach Potter, as I readied my wand once more. Somehow I hadn't imagined this scene would play quite like this, when I read Lockhart's announcement on the Duelling Club thing that morning.

Well... nothing I could do now. It was better if I got my head back in the game, then.

"I'm sorry, Potter," I said in a low voice, as we bowed to each other.

He frowned. "Sorry?"

"For what I'm about to do, of course."

"You wish," he said, with a soft, self-assured chuckle. We then stepped away and raised our wands, eyeing each other. Lockhart counted up: "One– two– three!"

Potter took a quick step ahead, his wand pointed at me. He cried: "Expeliar–"

"Protego!"

"–mus!"

His bolt of reddish magic crashed against the shield I had raised just in the nick of time, bouncing off its surface in the direction of the public, where it impacted one of the other students. I was vaguely aware of the crowd taking one, two steps back, but I didn't want to look away. He shot another spell at me, but my bubble held.

Not wanting to give him anymore time to try new stuff, I dispelled the shield with a swift lateral motion of my wand, then pushed forward to cast a Disarming charm of my own, following the wand movements as fast as my arm and wrist allowed, my eyes never leaving Potter.

He hadn't been ready for my change of pace, going from defensive to offensive in less than a heartbeat. He saw the spell coming, tried to move away, and still was hit by it. His wand jumped out of his hand, flying into the air.

I started to relax then, seeing as I had already won, and... it almost was my undoing. Because before his wand had managed to fly even half a metre away, Potter jumped like he was a cat, grabbed it off the very air and aimed it back at my face.

"Expelliarmus!" he cast once more.

I desperately stepped to the side, half-crouching as his spell went flying a mere hair's breadth away from me. But the narrow stand we were fighting on limited my usual tactics, hampering my mobility, and I ended up right at the edge, a step away from falling off. I was vaguely reminded of Duskhaven last year, explaining to me the difference between duels and skirmishes. The point of the stand was precisely to force us to use our magic, rather than rely on any other unorthodox tactics.

I raised my shield again, blocked another of his incoming charms, and slowly returned to the centre of the stand, facing off Potter again.

And he took a step back at my sight, because I was grinning like mad. And I couldn't help it: this was the most fun I'd had in... I didn't know how long. For a moment I could forget about all the worries, all the little plans and machinations to focus only on the fight, on the next spell, the next attack, the clashing of magical wills. And it was a fight where I knew I wasn't really risking anything of true, critical value. This wasn't anything like being my recent skirmish against the possessed Luna Lovegood. No, this was fun!

Harry visibly steeled himself, his eyes locked on my wand and waiting for the moment I'd dispel my shield to go on the offensive again. And that, it was a losing proposition for me: his reflexes were top-notch, so he was bound to cast his Disarming charm before I could finish mine.

Time for a feint, then.

I began the lateral movement of my wand again, but halted it before releasing the shield. Harry's spell crashed against the barrier not a moment later, and then and only then did I dispel it and launched my attack:

"Flipendo!"

There was the flash of a camera, but I ignored it. The spell connected and Potter went flying, legs up and crashing down on the stand. He wasn't out of the match yet, as he twisted to cast something back at me, but I followed with a quick Disarming charm of my own, and then I cried "Accio wand!"; and his wand duly flew into my hand.

It was the Slytherins that erupted in cheers this time around, Snape looking satisfied for once. But I ignored it all, approaching the boy to return his wand.

"Good fight," I said. "You almost got me there. Maybe next time?"

He looked at me, puzzled for a moment, before he smiled and took his wand. Then he gave me a nod and said: "Right, sure."

We parted amiably enough, and I moved to descend from the stand feeling oddly relaxed. I'd never been a sporty kind of girl, neither in this life nor in my previous one, and I had assumed the same would be true for wizarding sports too —Quidditch being the main example of a sport I most definitely did not enjoy. But now I could understand how one could end up dedicating their lives to one of them; perfecting your skills, participating in championships...

Not surprising, then, that Snape had to piss on my parade.

"Stay up there," he ordered me, before turning to the group at large and to Lockhart with a malicious smile. "I believe that a 'King of the Hill' contest would work for the best here. Let's see... Weasley! Your turn!"

Ron Weasley looked both affronted and scary, but he did come on to the stand to face me. I sighed, but there was nothing I could do with Snape's threat still hanging over my head, so we bowed and began our fight. Which was very short lived, because Weasley's broken wand backfired with his first spell, causing him to have a full on sneezing fit. I could have easily walked up to him and plucked his wand off his hand —no magic necessary— and he wouldn't have noticed.

Hermione —who Snape called for right afterwards, of course— was a tougher nut to crack. Somewhat literally, as she surprised me by casting a shield charm of her own. Her form wasn't bad at all, and my probing spells didn't fracture it. But I noticed she was slower than me at casting, and so when she let it go to attack me, I was already prepared and hit her with a Body-bind curse before she could finish her invocation.

And I figured that would have been it, Trio humiliated and all... but no. Apparently Snape's plan was clearly to have the entire second year Gryffindor house —at least, those of them present at the Duelling Club— face me one after the other, so that they could all be defeated by me.

He was enjoying it immensely, the colossal man-child, judging by all his gloating and 'encouraging' words to my opponents. An enjoyment that came at the expense of mine —who quickly became the target of all the lions' dark stares— and pretty much everybody else in attendance, for that matter.

In the end it was Lockhart who rescued me —still undefeated after two more duels, though tired as hell from all the magic that I'd been throwing around. He interrupted Snape before he could call any new opponents to face me, arguing that we'd ran out of time for more, and announcing the date for the next gathering. I used the distraction to jump off the stand at last with a relieved sigh, then walked back to my friends.

"Bet you enjoyed that," muttered Tracy as I approached them.

"What, Snape painting a huge bullseye on my back? Yeah, it was lovely."

"It wasn't your fault, though," protested Perks on my stead.

I tilted my head towards the Gryffindor side of the room, their angry postures evident, their resentment boiling just under the surface. I sighed and said: "And do you think they'll care about that? Nah... they'll gang up on me the moment my back is turned on them, you just wait and see."

"We'll have your back, then," she declared. "Right, Tracey?"

We both turned to look at her, and I was expecting a rebuke of some sort; but she just gazed at me for a beat, her face pensive. Then she nodded and simply said: "'Course."

Which you know, it lifted my spirits somewhat, after Snape's small-mindness had pretty much managed to utterly ruin what should have been an easy, fun experience for me. Thanks to him I'd now need to avoid the lions getting the drop on me, and also find a way to expose Potter's peculiar language skills.

And if that wasn't enough, as we were leaving the Great Hall I noticed Lockhart eyeing me —with a strange, eerily suspicious expression on his face.