I followed the two Gryffindor boys along the corridors, and was still a good few yards away when they went through the bathroom's door. In their rush they never noticed me behind them, and so I doubted for a moment whether to join them in the bathroom, or to wait outside. In the end I opted for the latter, and decided I would act as a lookout, hidden from view behind one of the suits of armour.

It was the safest choice for the timeline, all things considered, and for me. This was meant to be Ron, Harry and Hermione's bonding moment after all, the forging of their friendship; so it was best if I didn't intervene, didn't meddle into that. Let them have their own little emotional scene without a Slytherin in there to make them wary, to force them into keeping their walls up, so to speak.

And if an acromantula did appear, I'd wait and see whether or not they could deal with it on their own before intervening. Hopefully they'd be able to, and so I'd be free to slip by unnoticed and go for the forbidden corridor instead. Because I was very aware that all of this was just Quirrell's distraction to get to the stone, and with the changes from the version I remembered from my fore-memories, I couldn't be certain he wouldn't succeed this time around.

The wait was tense, continuously looking to one side of the corridor then the other, sweat making my wand hand sticky. I almost let out an audible breath of relief when I saw the three of them emerge out of the bathroom. Hermione's eyes were red and puffy, but she looked glad to see the boys had found her.

And they simply... stood there, the absolute idiots! Chatting in front of the bathroom door with not a care in the world. I was about to emerge out of my hiding place to berate them out of sheer indignation when Hermione paused and emitted a broken cry. Ron and Harry turned to follow her gaze. I did the same.

There was an acromantula on the ceiling, right above me.

I shouted and dashed out of the way and towards the middle of the corridor, right as the monstrous arachnid jumped and impacted the very same spot I'd been hiding in with a loud thud, the suit of armour collapsing to the floor in a shower of rolling metal pieces. The creature screeched and lunged at me again. It was way, way bigger than I remembered from the movie —or perhaps it was my small body that made the creature appear as a massive beast, almost as tall as I was.

I rose my wand desperately towards it and shouted "Protego!"

I'd been trying to learn the shield charm for a while now, practising it now and then when I could find some free time away from everyone else. It was difficult, probably the hardest spell I'd tried to tackle so far, and it didn't help that I felt on the verge of panic right now. So I was quite surprised when a semi-transparent barrier emerged out of my wand, separating me from the acromantula. I only had gotten it to do that once before.

And maybe it was because of that very surprise that my focus failed when the monster swiped one of its many legs at me, its bladed tip simply piercing through the barrier as if it was nothing but tissue paper. I managed to dodge at the last second, but the leg caught the end of my robes, and I heard my clothes ripping as I retreated back and towards the boys and the frizzy haired girl.

"Sarramond?" she asked me, her voice breaking. "You also came to–?"

"Not now!" I shouted, harshly pushing her back to keep our distance with the creature advancing on us.

"Wingardium Leviosa!" said Harry. I saw the breast plate of the armour suit rise in the air and shoot towards the acromantula. It simply bounded off its carapace, the monster not even noticing.

Yeah, that wasn't going to cut it this time around.

Hmm... cut it.

I slashed my wand diagonally in the air as I shouted "Diffindo!" and pushed as much magic and intention into the spell as I dared. Then I repeated the motion once more, trying my best to aim at the spider as I slashed one, two, three more times. "Diffindo! Diffindo!"

I saw faint pale lines appear on the exoskeleton of its legs where my severing charm had hit, criss-crossing one another; some of them deep enough that drops of dark ichor seeped from the wounds.

But it didn't seem to discourage the acromantula, which simply kept moving towards us with exactly the same agility, as if the wounds were only superficial. And judging by the screech and how its mouth pincers moved, I guessed I'd only managed to anger it further.

"Shit! What the hell is it made of?!" I exclaimed in frustration, right as Ron shouted "RUN!" and Harry grabbed my free arm, all but dragging me and Hermione into a run.

We rushed along the corridor, and I gave up all pretence of precision and control, aiming with my wand at pretty much every painting and suit of armour that lined its walls and shooting panicky wild magic into them. There was no invocation, just a vague wand motion that resembled that of a levitating spell and sheer magical force; but it did the trick and paintings jumped out of the walls, and suits of armour collapsed on our wake. Ron noticed what I was doing and quickly imitated me, adding to the chaos. All that we could do to distract the predator after us for even the briefest of instants.

And if all the ruckus and noises helped bring the teachers' attention to us sooner, all the better.

Then Ron suddenly stopped in his tracks, causing us to run into him and nearly fall to the floor. I was about to shout something at him when I realized just why he'd stopped. A second acromantula was crawling at the end of the hallway, pretty much blocking our way back towards the Great Hall.

Shit.

"Here!" said Harry, moving towards a nearby door. It turned out to be locked, though. I moved to cast the unlocking charm, but Hermione was faster: "Alohomora!"

We scrambled through the door and into a classroom, and I had the time to take a quick glance around while Potter closed the door after us: I didn't recognize the room, and judging by the diagrams on the walls full of complex arithmantic symbols, I guessed this was one of the older years classrooms. But more importantly: there was no other door, no other exit.

Except for the three large windows opposite us, which opened to the cliff side of the castle, offering a great view of the lake. A lethal one, if we tried to escape that way.

"You wouldn't... happen to have any... brooms with you?" I asked, panting.

"Brooms?" asked Ron, unbelieving. "Are you mental? Where would we have any brooms?"

I turned to face him, my arms crossed. "Well, everybody says your brother Percy has one up his arse, no? So I figured maybe–"

"You shut up about my family! And why are you here anyway? Why were you stalking us?"

"Is it really the right time for this?" Harry scolded us.

"Sorry, Harry," said Ron, shaking his head.

Harry turned to look at me, and I realized he wanted me to say something too; oh God. I sighed and spoke a short "No."

"No," he said. "And the door isn't going to keep them out for long," he added, after one of the acromantulas crashed against it with a bang.

"We are trapped!" said Hermione.

I looked around the room, searching for something –anything!– that could be used as a weapon. But it was simply yet another classroom, with nothing but the usual furniture of chairs and desks. No giant swords or clubs or any sort of sharp ends in sight.

"That desk," said Harry, walking towards the teacher's desk, on top the short dais. "How much do you think it weights?"

I saw his point. The piece of furniture was an old-fashioned Victorian monster of a desk, made out of thick dark mahogany wood and with silver finishings.

"Too much," replied Hermione. "I don't think any of us can levitate that thing."

"Maybe together? We can keep it over the door, and when they get through–"

"We drop it on their heads!" said Ron. "Brilliant!"

It was a plan, and there didn't seem to be anything else we could use here, so we quickly set to it. Or they set to it without waiting for my opinion, and I simply joined them. We surrounded the desk, and chanted together 'Wingardium Leviosa!' while aiming all our wands at it. Slowly, clumsily, it began to float.

Harry directed us: "Move a little to the left, Hermione. Push it forward now, Ron..." It was slow going, our different forces causing it to want to spin and list in mid-air; and the continuous banging coming from the door didn't help either. But after a moment of panic when the desk seemed to lose lift for a second and almost crashed into the ground, we managed to place it right above the entrance and hold it in place.

Just in time, because a moment later the door exploded inwards, finally breaking under the impact of one of the acromantulas. The monster squeezed itself through the now clear entrance.

"Now! Drop it!"

The desk plunged on top of the spider, crashing into it with a sickening crunch even as its joints failed and broke apart. The acromantula's legs twitched for a few seconds under all the pieces of broken furniture, then they went still.

"Yes!" Ron exclaimed. "Take that, you bloody–"

"Watch out! The other one!"

The other one, as it were, was entering the room now, crawling over the corpse of its crushed companion. Not much camaraderie between fellow acromantulas, I guessed.

Harry and Ron started levitating random crap and pelting the creature with it: chairs and inkwells and books from the nearby shelves; the spider just shrugging it off. It jumped at Hermione, who was doing nothing but shrieking in alarm.

"Protego!" I cast once more, right before it could impact. This time I knew I couldn't fail. I couldn't afford to lose focus; so I kept my mind empty of everything except my intention, the idea of a solid wall: thick and made out of layers of reinforced concrete, as tall and strong as that Hoover dam in America.

The acromantula crashed into the barrier, its sharp legs scrabbling at my shield, trying to find purchase, probing for a weak spot. I could feel the pressure, the monster's force pushing my wand, my entire arm and upper body back. I narrowed my eyes and threw even more magic into the spell to meet its force, strengthening the shield further. The spider moved a few steps back, then lunged once more, hitting the invisible wall at full speed. This time I felt my feet sliding back on the polished floor.

More worryingly, I could also feel my stamina leaving me, my body getting tired. It's not that I had a certain reserve of magic that I was running out of, but simply that my physical body was getting exhausted. Professor Flitwick had explained it in one of his classes: magic was essentially endless, he'd told us, as wide and deep as the ocean. But even then, moving large buckets of water around was always tiring.

Next to me, Harry was casting severing charm after severing charm, but he had no better luck with those than I'd had before. And as the creature moved back once more to take impulse, I realized my shield wouldn't hold another one of those charges. So I grabbed Hermione's robes and pulled her back, rolling along with her on the floor as we barely dodged the attack, the acromantula landing a couple of feet away. We jumped to our feet and ran towards the opposite corner of the room as the creature turned quickly to search for its prey.

Harry levitated a piece of wood from the destroyed desk and launched it at the creature, trying to call its attention away from us. But it was ineffective, and its many eyes locked on us once more. The Boy Who Lived was shaken and panting, his face a mix of frustration and fear.

I wrecked my brain, trying to think of all those jinxes and hexes I'd been learning and practising all these weeks. Not because I'd expected to fight acromantulas, mind you, but just in case one of my housemates —or someone from another house— had a go at me. Defensive spells, offensive spells... what good were all those hours spent reading books if I couldn't put it to use when it actually mattered?

So I remembered one of the so-called 'spell chains' in the duelling book I'd been following, a set of spells meant to limit your opponent's movements, to push him around. Spell chains were a duellists technique, a set of predetermined spells you could practice together and train to cast them at the fastest rate possible, invoking one after another without delay; even going so far as to link the wand movements of each one into the next for faster casting.

No time like the present to put it into practice, I guessed. I aimed my wand at the creature and started casting, while the others tried the best to distract it.

"Locomotor Mortis! Flipendo! Depulso! Depulso! Locomotor Wibbly!" the five spells hit one right after the other, the acromantula falling to the ground and being pushed back slightly before it simply climbed back upright. I didn't waste time trying to gauge how effective my spells were, or which one of them I was mangling —because I knew I was mangling at least one of them, if not two, judging by the limited effects. I simply kept waving my wand and casting, trying to overwhelm the creature with rapid fire, and pushing more raw magic to compensate for my lack of finesse.

"Flipendo! Depulso! Depulso! Locomotor–!"

It wasn't enough. Of course it wasn't. I started trying to cast another shield, but I knew I was too exhausted for it to work. And the acromantula simply ignored my weak hits and jumped straight towards Ron, who let out a blood curling scream as he fell to the ground, covering his face with his arms.

"Impedimenta," said one calm voice from the entrance, and the spider simply stopped in mid air, still moving forwards, but as if through molasses.

I turned to see Professor Duskhaven entering the room, her every movement precise. She gingerly stepped over the debris of the desk and the other arachnid's corpse, taking her time, then pointed her wand at the living creature once more, and said with careful enunciation: "Incendio".

A monstrous torrent of flames emerged out of her wand and impacted the floating acromantula, its entire body igniting and rapidly combusting among shrieks. The smell and heat were overpowering, so much so that we all had to cover our noses and walk as far away from the eight-legged shaped ball of fire as possible, within the limited confines of the room.

Duskhaven looked casual as she maintained the spell even after the spider stopped making noises. She was unperturbed, not even strained at the massive amounts of magic she was pushing through the air, more than all of our previous attacks combined. When she finally stopped, there was nothing left of the spider but some black ashes that fell down and spread across the floor.

She then continued her display of magical excellence by casting a Patronus charm, invoking some sort of phantasmal bobcat. She said to the apparition: "I have found them, we are in the Ancient Runes classroom."

The bobcat nodded and bounced away, disappearing fast into the hallway outside. Only then did she turn to look at us: "Are you injured?" she asked in a neutral tone.

I looked at my thorn robe. I didn't even know if... with all the adrenaline through my veins I wouldn't have noticed it, if I was. But it looked like I was shaken around but otherwise intact, as were the Gryffindors.

She waited for us to confirm we were okay before saying "Good. I take it that you understand you should be dead by now, had I not intervened."

We replied with silence and downcast gazes. She waited for a few seconds, but before she could continue with whatever it was she was going to say, another voice interrupted her.

"Merlin!" exclaimed McGonagall, crossing the door and looking apoplectic at the devastated classroom, and then straight at us. I heard Ron's gulp as she advanced on us, scarier than any acromantula could ever dream to be. "What on Earth were you thinking of?!"

"I– uhm..." started Harry. Behind the older witch, I noticed a third figure entering the room.

Dumbledore. Oh, shit.

"Well? Mr. Potter?" McGonagall's voice lashed.

I was about to interrupt and explain the whole situation when Hermione said, in a low voice: "It was my fault, they were looking for me."

Oh right. I remembered it now: she didn't want to tell the truth, because that would mean admitting to the teachers that Harry and Ron had... well, bullied her, however lightly. So now, because she was grateful, she began to spin a lie to protect them. I grinned at Ron's astonished face.

"–you believe you could defeat an acromantula on your own? I thought better of you, Miss Granger!"

I let out a relieved sigh as McGonagall started berating her, the three Gryffindors looking ashamed. And thus the Golden Trio is born. One more bullet dodged.

Except maybe there was one other bullet coming for me tonight, because Dumbledore was looking at me funny. I was standing a little to the side, separated from the three Gryffindors and doing my best at remaining inconspicuous. I tried to avert my gaze, but to no avail.

"I must say I'm curious," he started, once McGonagall finally calmed down after removing a handful of points from the house of the lions. "I can see quite clearly the reasons why Miss Granger's housemates felt compelled to come to her aid. But you, Miss Sarramond, you belong to a different house altogether. So what drew you into this? Are you perhaps another friend of hers?"

"She's not," clarified Ron, ever so helpful.

And I frowned. Because what was Dumbledore trying to get at, exactly? That I was a Slytherin, therefore I must have had an ulterior motive? That having good intentions was a perfectly valid justification for Harry and Ron, but not for me? Because how could a Slytherin possibly do something good for its own sake, right?

I almost let out a bitter laugh. Because this was exactly how Ron thought, wasn't it? What he'd accused me of when I tried to warn them about the duel. And here we have the mighty Dumbledore following on the footsteps of the prejudiced eleven year old.

And the rub of it was... he was correct. I had ulterior motives. Loads of them, just not even in the neighbourhood of the ones he was probably imagining.

I opted to tell a partial version of the truth and hope for the best. After all, I wasn't wearing my sunglasses on account of it being at night, and I suspected he was experienced and observant enough to pick on subtle clues. If I tried to sell him the lie that I was Hermione's friend, I doubted he'd buy it.

"We were talking when Peeves entered into the Great Hall, and then they ran off to find Granger," I confessed, waving my hand at the boys, "which was stupid. So I instead told Tracey to warn a teacher and then followed after them, because I suspected they would only get themselves killed on their own. I figured I could make a difference since I'm much better at magic than they are. Uhm... defensive magic, I mean," I amended, noticing Hermione's betrayed glare.

Professor Duskhaven intervened then; she said: "While you do show a certain aptitude to the subject, Miss Sarramond, you shouldn't allow that to get to your head. You certainly lack the expertise to tackle a fully grown acromantula on your own, and it's only by luck that you all are still alive."

Dumbledore nodded gravely at that, his eyes still examining me with an inquisitive expression; but then he had one of those strange mood shifts of his and clasped his hands with a clap, saying: "Ah, but lending aid to fellow students in a time of need is a noble act, especially when it's in opposition to house allegiances. Acts we should strive to celebrate, let us say with... five points to Gryffindor, and another five to Slytherin!"

"But Albus–!" started McGonagall, unbelieving. They looked at each other for a beat, having some sort of silent conversation; then the witch sighed and shook her head. Duskhaven observed all of this with an indifferent look.

The Professors talked among themselves for a couple of minutes after that, leaving us to our own devices once they'd verified we were in fact unhurt. From what I could gather of their whispers, there'd been another three acromantulas out there that the Headmaster had already dealt with.

"Severus," Dumbledore said, turning towards the door where Snape had just manifested. "Is everything in order?"

They walked together a few steps away, Snape limping slightly —which caused Harry to shoot him a suspicious look. Snape replied in a low voice that I strained to listen: "...first door was open... guardian stopped the... still undisturbed..."

The guardian? Did he mean Fluffy, the three-headed dog? So Voldemort had made an attempt on the stone after all, perhaps through that house-elf of Quirrell again. And I guessed he must have failed, judging by how calm the two wizards were.

"Very well," said Dumbledore, returning to us. "Now that the immediate danger has passed, I think we've had our fill of excitement for one evening. Severus, Minerva, might you escort your respective students to their common rooms? And dear Xenia, would you be so kind as to assist me in restoring order to this chamber?" he asked, waving his hand at the general mayhem we had caused.

We departed then, with me following a silent and possibly bitten Snape down towards the dungeons. At some point he must have noticed the state of my robes because he asked me: "Are you hurt?"

"What? Oh, that... no, it didn't hit me."

Snape nodded and resumed limping down the staircase. Was he even supposed to be bitten at this stage? I thought not, so I couldn't help but ask: "What about you? You look hurt, uhm... sir."

He side-eyed me and said through his teeth: "That's not your concern, girl. Instead, you might think on your own actions. While such... foolhardy behaviour is almost a given from the Gryffindors, one would think you'd have the sense not to plunge head first into danger."

Oh, did that mean he cared about me?

"I asked the hat to sort me into Gryffindor, you know," I confessed with a shrug. I was aiming for nonchalant, but couldn't help the rest to come out sounding bitter instead: "It would have saved me some headaches."

"Regarding... your lineage, I presume."

"My lack of one, yes. So you know?"

"I am the head of our house, Sarramond. Obviously, I am aware of the various... matters within the common room."

"Then why don't you do anything?" I asked, my voice laced with indignation. "Tell Selwyn and the rest of them to cut it already with the racism?"

He paused to turn at me, looming overhead: "For the same reason you've refrained from asking for my help, I suspect. Slytherin fosters a distinct... self-reliance. Should I openly aid you, it would let all your housemates know that you're incapable of standing on your own feet. Such a mark on your reputation could haunt you for many more years than Mr. Selwyn."

Yeah, sure, I thought. That, and because helping the Muggleborn would go against the pretended image of sympathy towards the Death Eaters' cause that he worked so hard to project, wouldn't it?

I felt... conflicted about Snape. For someone who was supposed to be one of the good guys, he seemed to enjoy the trappings of the bad evil wizard a bit too much for comfort. As a Professor, he was intensively mediocre and inconsistent. He could explain stuff when he wanted to, teach it well enough to make you understand the reasoning behind, say... how an unmatched number of clockwise and counter-clockwise stirrings in a particular potion could affect its magical balance.

The thing is, he almost never wanted to. Teaching didn't seem to be even in the neighbourhood of Snape's interests, and it showed. Most of the time his explanations only came in after one of us students had made a mistake, messed up their potion assignment simply by virtue of being unaware of some obscure aspect of its brewing that Snape had refused to clarify ahead of time. And then he didn't just explain the mistake, he also berated us: dunderheads and fools and half-wits. It was clear to me the only reason he was a teacher was because Dumbledore wanted to keep his spy close at hand.

And then there were his other failings: like how he was a creep still obsessed with Potter's mother —and I had met people like that in my fore-memories, people who were unable to move on after rejection, who felt entitled to someone's love and attention and resorted to stalking and destructive behaviour when they invariably failed to receive it.

Snape chose to be a Death Eater after all, joined Voldemort's side of his own volition. And he didn't betray him out of some realization of the wrongness of his cause. No, it was only out of selfishness. It was only when Voldemort threatened someone he personally cared about that he turned turncoat.

Odd, then, that I still felt a certain kinship with the big bat, despite knowing all that. Maybe because he was the outsider, the other among Dumbledore's staff; and I couldn't help but identifying with that, being an outsider myself too, one who didn't fully belong in my house, or even in Hogwarts. Or because of how well he embodied that moral greyness, that no-man's land that I felt myself drawn to.

"Right," I said at last. "Maybe I'd rather take that mark to my reputation than a Killing Curse to the face. Because I'm not that sure Selwyn knows not to cross that line."

"I doubt such a thing will occur," he sentenced, which was an outright lie if I ever heard one. "But, if you find yourself in true danger, you can turn to me. Just be mindful of the... repercussions."

I nodded, but I had my doubts. This was Snape, after all, the man who had pretty much dedicated his entire life to becoming a spy among the side of the dark. Would he risk a crack in his ironclad cover for the sake of the random orphan girl? Or would he simply choose to look away, if Selwyn tried something? I couldn't help but remember a scene from the movies: the Muggle Studies teacher floating above a table during that meeting at the Malfoy Manor, asking for his help. A help that he never provided.

Would my death be just one more atrocity he was willing to ignore? Just the cost of doing business for him?

That was the thing with Snape, I guessed. For all his capabilities he wasn't someone I could depend on, not really.

He left me at the entrance to the Slytherin common room, the wall opening up when he spoke the password and pushed me inside. Then he turned away without a word and disappeared from sight as the entrance closed once more behind me.

It was only then that I realised how expertly he had diverted my attention away from his own injury and what had caused it. Hats off to him, I guessed.

I entered the common room as I always did: my gaze low and walking purposefully towards the first year girls' dorm, aiming at crossing the danger zone as fast as possible and spend as little time in the luxurious lobby as humanly possible, doing my best to keep under everyone else's radar.

This time it didn't work, though. Maybe because most of the Slytherin students had congregated there, talking among themselves about the night's unique events. Maybe because of my messy appearance, tired and with my robes torn, my hair even more dishevelled than usual. But the moment their eyes landed on me, conversations stopped across the room and I received a dozen curious stares.

It was Tracey who first addressed me. She walked fast up to me and said: "That was stupid! Are you okay?"

I nodded to both statements, slowing down but not stopping; she must have realised this was not my favourite place in the castle to spend leisure time at, because she went silent after that, shadowing me towards the dorm.

Except that we were then intercepted by Prefect Farley, who planted herself right into my path and forced us to stop: "Oh, so you're still alive?" she asked.

I gave her a curt nod.

She looked down at me arms akimbo, her voice deceptively chipper as she said: "Oh well, I guess that's it then, right? But next time, please do follow mine and the professors' instructions, would you, you nobhead? I really don't want to be remembered as the Prefect who lost a firstie to a bloody acromantula. It would be a real stain to my reputation, you see."

"I'm fine," I grumbled, because while I respected Gemma Farley for her help so far, I really didn't appreciate being publicly humiliated in front of the entire house.

She took hold of a fistful of my damaged robes, aiming her wand at me. "Yes, I can see that. Reparo!"

The robes fixed themselves under my gaze. "I can do that too," I grumbled, refusing to thank her. She twisted her mouth.

"Can you not get killed, as well?" she asked.

I shrugged. "I have a good track record: eleven years without getting killed even once."

"Let's make it three more years, then," she deadpanned. "Once I leave Hogwarts you are free to go hunt as many five-X beasts as you wish. But not until then."

Right. If I made it that far, that was; which this wasn't helping me with. At last she took a step to the side, leaving me to resume my walk of shame followed by Tracey; but we didn't get further than a couple of yards before Pansy Parkinson's voice interrupted us.

"I was sure she was dead," she spoke, as if talking to Bulstrode, Malfoy, and the rest of their little group of twats, but loud enough that I would hear her. "You see, being a mudblood and all; so I decided to help myself to some of her things before they were thrown away. Look Draco, I got her diary."

"Oh, you did? Let's see what's in it, then."

I stopped in my tracks to turn and look at them. Parkinson was seated on one of the leather couches, opening a notebook she held in her hands: a notebook with little orchid flowers drawn on its purple covers. One that I knew pretty well, given that it was supposed to me at the bottom of my trunk. It was my notebook of thoughts about the future, that I still had to protect with some sort of enchantment, some day.

"Spoilers," she read aloud to general sniggering, the absolute witch. "The Secret Strategies of Sylvia Sarramond, Sagacious Snarker of Sublime Style. Merlin, she's such a baby," she scoffed.

What can I say. In my defence, I was seven when I'd started writing it down.

I felt my body tense up, the noise of my blood pumping in my ears. My wand found its way to my hand almost without my notice. But I tried to keep my cool: it wouldn't do to attack a pure-blood in the middle of the Slytherin common room.

"Buy all the Apples from the Amazon that you can afford, but never be a Yahoo," she read, confused. I hoped the little code I'd used when writing my thoughts down would prove too much for her smooth brain, but she was determined to find something embarrassing in there. She went a few pages ahead.

"Oh, what's this? Did she write a story for little children too? Of course she did. Let's see... Little Tom split his Riddle into seven pieces: the first he put into a ring–"

No.

"DEPULSO!" I shouted, the spell flying straight at her.

I had tried to aim more or less at the notebook, try to push it out of her hands. But focus and intention were key to magic, and the rush of panic combined with the adrenaline of the night made it so that my aim failed, and I pushed much more magic than intended. The banishing charm made the book fly out of her hands, sure enough, but it also pushed Parkinson hard against the back of the couch, with enough force for the ornate piece of furniture to tilt back. Draco managed to jump out of the way, but his sudden absence left the couch without a counterweight, causing both Pansy and Millicent Bulstrode to come crashing to the floor.

I ignored the sudden chaos and the gasps and chuckles among the onlookers, moving forward even as Parkinson scrambled back to her feet. I crouched and picked up my notebook with my left hand, the wand in my right never straying far from her.

"You– you can't–!" she babbled, digging in a pocket to produce her own wand. It was as if the mere idea of me using magic against her had never even occurred to her. "You will regret–!"

"Do you think I'm afraid of you?" I taunted her in a cold voice. "Pancy, I just fought and killed an acromantula tonight."

Sure, I hadn't killed it on my own, but she didn't have to know that. And I saw her face go pale when my words registered, words what were no doubt also strengthened by my overall messy appearance, by the tear in my robes that Farley had just mended. I heard whispers starting among some of the older students at my declaration.

"Now, now," drawled Selwyn, who chose this moment to approach us, towering over us first years with a lazy self-assured smile. "We are not animals here, are we? We don't simply attack each other like Muggles in a tavern."

I paused for a moment, looking at him, then eyeing Parkinson. I was a mix of furious and still sort of scared —because the amount of damage Parkinson could have caused, just by reading aloud some of the sentences in that notebook, could easily have been catastrophic— but I wasn't so off my rocker that I would risk openly defying Selwyn.

And yet, I wanted to shut Parkinson's mouth. I wanted to hit her, for daring to touch my things, for all the little insults she sent my way daily, for having been a pain in my arse ever since my first day at the castle. And perhaps she wasn't Selwyn, she wasn't the Sorting Hat, she wasn't my fore-knowledge, one of those surprisingly resistant acromantulas, or any of the many other forces acting to ruin Hogwarts for me. She was a nuisance at best, and not even the stronger one.

But she was the one I could beat.

"You're right," I admitted to the psychopath next to us, then turned to search for Daphne Greengrass and met her surprised eyes; because I'd need the support of another pure-blood for this: "But still, I've been insulted and stolen from, so I want to challenge her to a duel. Isn't that my right?"

For once, Daphne looked out of place: for the briefest moment I could glimpse the eleven years old girl she was behind the princess mask that she liked to wear. It was in how she looked bewildered and confused, her eyes jumping from me to Selwyn and then Parkinson, unsure as to how to react. I guessed her parents hadn't exactly instructed her in the proper protocol to follow when the Muggleborn in your dorm challenged your pure-blood housemate to a duel; not that I blamed them. And then, a moment later, her mask fell back into place, almost with an audible snap; and she spoke aloud in a calm tone: "a witch has the right to issue a challenge when insulted, yes."

I glanced at Selwyn, but he looked amused at this new development, and like he wouldn't mind seeing some more violence between the two of us. For once, we were in agreement.

"Right," I snapped at Parkinson. "You, me, duel, right now!"

I walked to the centre of the common room without waiting for a response, and adopted the customary combative position I'd read about on the Duelling Primer: my right side turned towards my opponent, left foot angled sideways, my wand aimed at the sky instead of at her because we hadn't bowed yet.

"Prefect Farley," I said, "can you be the Arbiter? And you are my second, Tracey; not that you'll need to do anything, of course."

"Ahm..." replied Tracey.

"Well, Pancy, what are you waiting for?!" I said.

Around me, the other Slytherin students were moving back to clear a circle. I took that —and their hungry, hyena-like expressions— to be a sort of tacit approval of my challenge, even though I was stretching the duelling rules to the breaking point by choosing 'immediately' as both time and location. You were supposed to issue a challenge hours, even days in advance.

"A... duel?" asked Parkinson, unbelieving. "That is... barbaric! It's not done anymore! Duels aren't–"

"Formal customs must be followed," interrupted Farley, who was shaking her head slightly but apparently accepting her role as Arbiter. She sighed and said: "You have been issued a challenge, Parkinson."

"By... a mudblood?!"

"If I'm a mudblood you won't have any problems putting me back in my place, no?" I taunted her. "No matter that I'm top of our class in Defence."

She looked bewildered around the common room, glancing at older students here and there as she searched for an exit, but none of them offered her any. They were a bloodthirsty bunch, the Slytherins. And a self-interested one too, because I knew none of them would offer her a lifeline unless there was something to gain, not when a Greengrass had tacitly approved of my challenge and neither Farley nor Selwyn seemed to mind it. And Parkinson's own allegiances lied with Malfoy and Bulstrode, who didn't seem like the strongest allies you could hope for, given that both of them were now making themselves scarce so as to not be called as her second.

"I... I don't have anything to prove to the likes of you!" shouted Parkinson at last, before retreating towards the dorms.

Wait, what? She couldn't just... do that, could she? Just walk away?

It seems she could, because Prefect Farley announced: "Sarramond wins the duel by forfeit. Now, enough of this: time to go to bed, you lot!"

I scoffed, relaxing my posture as Tracey passed by my side without a word. She probably hadn't liked me volunteering her as my second, I guessed.

This... this didn't feel like winning. My heart was still hard at work pumping blood; and while I felt drained from all the spell-casting I'd done before, my magic still was pretty much alive in my veins, my wand hungry for more.

At least my notebook was safe, and intact. This had been a mistake on my part, and also a waking call: I'd need to protect it better going forward, if I was to keep it. Perhaps I should ask Hermione if she knew any tips for that; I half-remembered she'd performed some sort of protective spells at some point in the story.

And as I looked at the other students around me, I noticed I wasn't the only one feeling let down at the anticlimactic resolution. There was scoffing and sniggering; but for once, those weren't aimed at me, but at Parkinson. I could even see some of them glancing at me in passing, as if their appreciation of the little orphan mudblood had shifted ever so slightly, hopefully for the better.

That, it felt nice; I wasn't gonna lie.