Santana was running along the empty hallways after Hermione. Whenever her friend turned around a corner she could follow the sniffling sounds she made while she cried. Without them, she might not have noticed that Hermione had entered a lavatory.
She opened the door and knocked on the only occupied stall.
"Go away.", Hermione moaned after the fourth time.
"No, because Weasley was wrong.", Santana said forcefully. "You do have friends. Me."
The only sounds were more sniffling and the door unlocking.
"He's a stupid idiot.", Santana tried to comfort her.
Hermione let out a sound between a laugh and a wet cough.
"He's not even worth your tears."
She slung an arm around her shoulders and Hermione clung to her like a drowning man clutching a log.
"I know.", she said quietly.
"Good."
"I don't even want to cry.", she complained and broke out in tears again.
This time they were mixed with a tiny amount of laughs though.
"Should I have punched him like I did with Malfoy?", Santana joked.
"No.", she responded immediately. "You would have gotten in so much trouble."
"Who cares?", Santana said softly. "Some things are worth some house points."
A few days ago, Malfoy had walked up to them in the great hall with his two thugs following behind him. He had insulted Hermione and mocked her that she probably didn't even know which end of her wand was the handle since her parents were 'worthless muggles'. Continued to ridicule her and threatened to curse her to see if anyone would even care about the dirty little Mudblood. Santana cared little for puny words that weren't even true and was about to drag Hermione away to the library when he took out his wand.
Her instincts flared to life, the training she had received being the only thing filling tha blank space in her mind that was tinted red like adrenaline, blood andfight.
In less than the blink of an eye she had used her left hand to slam into his outstretched wrist before she broke his jaw with her right fist. Malfoy had collapsed before his spinning wand clattered to the ground a few tables over. Professor Snape had been furious with her and had immediately swept her away to the headmaster.
After the initial thought of panic, she calmed and remembered their nightly conversation. He would listen to her and let her explain, wouldn't he?
As it turned out, Snape steamrolled over anything that she wanted to say. Even Dumbledore didn't have a chance to get a word in. He simply sat enthroned in his golden chair, gazing absently as if admiring the weather while Snape ranted about her being a danger to upstanding citizens and good students.
After letting him belittle and insult her and Hermione, Snape seemed to run out of air and Dumbledore finally intervened. He looked at her.
"Is it true that you punched Mr. Malfoy?"
She lowered her gaze and nodded. How many points would he take? Would she get detention or even be expelled?
"Why?", his gentle demeanor confused her. She had just admitted to it and he didn't even scold her.
"He was about to curse Hermione, he had his wand out already.", she said.
When Dumbledore remained calm and didn't say anything, she continued: "His father is a powerful wizard, he boasted about it a lot. I wasn't sure what he might possibly have taught him, so I wanted to eliminate any threat before things could escalate."
Her voice got quieter towards the end until she whispered the last words.
"I see." He laid the tips of his fingers together and looked at her with eyes that seemed to shine with an otherworldly light.
"I will take five points from Gryffindor."
Snape drew breath to vehemently voice his protests but was halted by a raised hand from the headmaster.
"Since this is your first infringement, you will not receive detention."
She breathed a sigh of relief. That also meant no expulsion.
"Next time, I expect you to fetch a teacher instead of resorting to violence. If you must intervene, limit yourself to disarming.", he told her in a stern tone.
Relieved she nodded and shortly after that left the office. I was unlikely Dumbledore would kill her. He seemed to be none the wiser about her father, nevertheless she would continue to remain careful around him.
She smiled fondly at the memory of Malfoys jaw breaking under her fist. It had hurt more than she had expected. Her father always stopped her before she did any damage. His hands were always soft and gentle with her.
"We should go to charms.", she tried to coax Hermione out of the stall.
"You can go, I need a bit more time alone.", she responded.
"I'll stay then.", Santana replied and deliberately flopped onto the ground. "You're my friend. I'm not leaving you like that."
"You'll miss charms!", Hermione sounded scandalized.
"So will you.", Santana commented.
"Fine.", Hermione replied, clearly still agitated.
"Fine.", she said calmly and set her head in her hands.
They stayed until the evening in that toilet. Sometimes Hermione would cry, other times they cursed their classmates. Her friend refused to gossip about teachers.
"You know, I think it's time to get lunch.", Santana started. "This might be a toilet, but this smell is really bad."
Hermione agreed and opened the door to the stall. Only to slam it shut again and look at her with a panicked face.
Through the briefly opened door, Santana glimpsed the enormous creature that had invaded the lavatory. Her mind went blank, a red haze clouding her vision again as she yanked Hermione down - just in time before the stall above them shattered with a deafening crash. The creature, a troll, had smashed them with his club.
"Crawl!", she ordered, but Hermione was frozen in place. Her face was pale and her eyes wide.
They were distracted by the door opening and loud cursing as Weasley and Potter rushed in and threw rubble on the beast. Luckily the troll was distracted as well. She managed to halfway drag, halfway carry Hermione to the door when she heard a scream from behind. She turned around to see Harry in the trolls tight grip, the other hand was wielding the club to smash him to mush. Ron had his wand out, but stood frozen, completely lost.
She ran towards the beast, grabbed a glass shard from a broken mirror and cut her hand. She quickly drew Dagaz, the rune of time and Algiz, the rune of life, reversed.
They would burn out quickly, but buy them time to flee hopefully. Meanwhile Hermione had instructed Ron on what to do so he levitated the club and knocked the troll out. Harry fell and managed to crawl away before the runes burned out and the frozen troll crashed to the ground in one giant smelly heap.
They looked at each other, all still in shock at what had happened. The door opened again and Professors McGonagall, Quirrel and Snape entered, only to stare at the unconscious troll in the middle of the room.
"Merlins beard.", their head of house exclaimed. That seemed to unfreeze the teachers who gave them a stern talking to. After Hermioneliedto them and told them it was all her fault, which they actually believed, they were sent to the tower to finish dinner that had apparently been canceled.
On their way up, Ron confronted Santana about the magic she had used.
"That was bloodmagic! It's dark!", he accused her.
"Would you rather Harry had been smushed to a pulp?", she responded.
"That's dark magic! People say it's dangerous!"
"I used this because there was a life at stake. Do you really think I would smear my blood all over the castle?", she responded indignantly.
"You probably curse us all in your sleep!", Ron stopped and glared at her.
Santana took a deep breath.
"No."
She turned to look at him.
"You know, that's exactly why I'm here. My father wanted me to go to Durmstrang to become just like him.", she looked down. She had to play this right.
"But I don't want that. I want more than just allies that stab me in the back as soon as I am useless to them. I want more than just followers that are too scared of me to really get to know me. I want to learngoodmagic. Is that too much to ask for?", she looked at him imploringly.
"Is that why he disowned you?" he asked directly.
"Ron!", Harry jumped in. "That's a bit tactless. Besides she just saved our skins."
Santana looked down again, praying that they didn't insist on an answer.
"Fine.", Ron conceded. "But you really shouldn't do it again."
Santana nodded quickly and they resumed their way to the tower.
"You know, I think I've never seen Snape speechless.", Harry joked lightly.
"It was a great face he made, wasn't it?", Ron replied and they all laughed together. Perhaps she had just gained two more friends today.
