THOxTQ: Consequence of Sounds

Yes, yes I am writing a fanfiction of a fanfiction. And yes, yes I will rename this later. -Hazel

Chapter 1
Saturday, September 1, 1979

In some ways, Platform Nine and Three-Quarters was just the same as it had been last year. The platform was still crowded and noisy, filled with emotional parents saying teary goodbyes to their often times embarrassed children. Plenty of students still boarded the train, saying hello to their friends and trying to find the best compartment before anyone else could take it.

Yet there was a significant dull from what it had been like in previous years. Ava remembered what it had been like her first year: brighter, more cheerful, and considerably less like a send-off to war.

Ava had hugged her mother outside of the platform. She hadn’t given her much detail on the actual war going on–there wasn’t any reason to worry her mother about a certain wizard’s view on muggles and muggle-raised witches. She pushed her way through the crowd, nodding and saying hello to familiar faces. She had gotten there just early enough to get one of the last remaining empty compartments. Quickly stepping in before anyone else could take it, she put her bags away and sat down. Michael and Kyra would not be here yet–every year since her third year, the year they had all become friends, they had arrived at the train in the exact same order: first Ava, approximately fifteen to twenty minutes until eleven o’clock. Then Michael, who would stride into the compartment just a few minutes after herself. Finally Kyra would run in minutes before departure, probably having slept in late or losing track of time at home.

As if on cue, Michael walked in. “Hey, Ava!” he said, appearing more cheerful than most of the platform outside. Michael had obviously grown another few inches over the summer, as if he weren’t already tall enough.

“Hey, Michael,” she greeted as he started putting his bags away.

“Have you seen Kyra yet?” he asked as he sat down.

“She’s probably just waking up,” Ava said, only half-joking. “Your girlfriend will be here eventually, don’t worry.”

Michael’s face went red. The two had just started dating over the summer and Ava had received letters from both of them announcing their new relationship within minutes of each other. “So, how’s Zack?”

“Haven’t you talked to him?” she asked quickly.

"Well, yeah,” he said. “Haven’t you?”

“Of course,” she said. “I was in Hogsmeade last week.” That was true; she had been to Hogsmeade last week. However, she’d only seen her boyfriend of over two years for a very short time while she was there. They’d gone to The Three Broomsticks and had a very quick drink before she’d had to leave. She’d seen him many other times over the summer, of course, but not as much as she had in previous years. She told herself it was because of time constraints, which it was, wasn’t it?

Michael nodded. “That’s good. I can’t wait for the Hogsmeade trips this year.”

“So you can go to Madam Puddifoot’s with Kyra?”

“No. I mean, if she wants, sure,” Michael stammered. “But I mean, it’s just that they’ll be fun trips, that’s all, they were last year, and–”

“Hey, guys,” Natalie Cole appeared at the door. “Have good summers?”

“Yeah,” said Michael quickly, obviously grateful for the change in topic.

Ava nodded. “Congrats on Quidditch Captain, Natalie,” she said.

“Thanks!” Natalie had been one of Gryffindor’s chasers for years and Ava guessed that she’d go down kicking and screaming before they lost the House Cup. The team had been great in the past, but last year they’d gotten a new Captain that hadn’t been as good. Sure, they’d still won, but only by a few points and a lucky catch by their Seeker. “Team’s going to be great this year, we’ve got good people lined up so far and I’ve got a good feeling about tryouts.”

“When are tryouts?” Michael asked. “Just wondering,” he quickly added.

“Friday,” she said. “If you want to try out, I’d suggest going out and practicing tomorrow before classes start up. And, Ava, make sure you’re not too rusty, you’re still going to have to try out too.”

“Not worried,” Ava said.

“Neither am I, but I don’t want to deal with some second year getting mad they didn’t get in because you missed a few bludgers and they had great flying technique or whatever. Practice. And tell Zack that he better not–”

“Hey guys!” In her normal nearly late, Kyra came to a sudden stop outside of the compartment, almost running straight into Natalie. Just then, the train began to move. Kyra grinned, blowing her long dark hair out of her face. “Made it.”

“Barely,” Ava quipped. “Sleep in late?”

“My alarm wasn’t loud enough,” she insisted, walking into the compartment. “Are you sitting with us, Natalie?”

The older girl shook her head. “No, just saying hello. See you at tryouts, Ava,” she said. Natalie gave a small wave at them and left.

Kyra started putting her stuff away, and Michael quickly stood up to help her. Maybe if Kyra hadn’t been about a foot shorter than Michael, she would’ve protested, but in reality she could barely reach the luggage shelves. They both sat down across from Ava. Kyra set an owl cage down next to her, which held a tiny little thing. It gave Ava the evil eye, and Ava returned the look.

“This year’s gonna be one for the books,” Kyra said. “I can feel it.”

“If you mean textbooks, sure,” Ava muttered. “Fifth year’s a pain.”

“I’m sure the OWLs can’t be that bad, can they?” Kyra wondered. Ava just looked at her. “Okay, fine,” she relented. “So the OWLs won’t be fun. But something big’s going to happen this year, I can feel it.”

“Something big already has happened. Read the papers. Something big happens every day,” Ava deadpanned.

Michael frowned. “The war’s got to end soon,” he’s said. “You-Know-Who’s already been going for so long, there’s no way he’ll last more than a few months, right?”

The war’s only just beginning, Ava thought, but before she had a chance to vocalize these thoughts, there was a knock at the door. She looked up.

Annie Anitho stood at the door. “Hi,” she said. “Can I sit here?”

Michael nodded. “Sure,” he said, and Annie started putting her things away. Annie was weird in an almost endearing sort of way: she wore nice clothing, had good grades, and came from a respectable pureblooded family. She also carried her wand strapped to her leg, wore tiny earrings shaped like eagles, and had a blinking, multicolored tattoo of an eye on her ankle. Annie had cut her hair short over the summer; where there used to be long and flowing dark hair was a short bob that barely went past her chin. Ava wondered if she had cut it because of her recent breakup with Malcolm Parker, but said nothing; she was one of the last people to have any right to comment on another’s relationship.

“Are you all ready for the school year?” Annie asked as she opened a cat carrier and pulled out a darkly-colored cat and set it on her lap. Ava scooted away a few inches away. “Because I’m not,” she admitted.

“No one’s ready for the school year,” Ava said, watching the cat warily, which glanced at her.

“I’m excited,” Kyra piped up.

“Yeah, because you’re mad,” Ava quickly retorted.

“You’re just a pessimist,” Kyra said flippantly. Ava shrugged.

“School won’t be that bad,” Michael muttered. “At least we’re getting a new Defense teacher.”

There was no arguing with that; the previous teacher had been absolutely crazy and had quit a month before finals because she thought the Fat Friar was out to get her. To be fair, she did have some reason to be afraid of one of Hogwarts’ dead residents, but not the Hufflepuff’s ghost. Peeves had been messing with her since the beginning of the school year and making it look like the poor fat ghost, and in return she had given the Hufflepuffs a considerably larger workload than the other houses. Professor Folle had become one of the few people to ever have been universally disliked by the Hufflepuff House.

“Thank God,” Kyra said. “Folle was awful. Any idea who the new one is?”

“I’ve heard rumors,” Annie murmured. “Supposedly it’s someone good. Then again, I don’t think Dumbledore has as many applicants as he used to.”

“Really? I wonder why. I’d be dying to apply with that job’s track record,” Kyra joked.

“Yeah, you would be dying in that job,” Ava said. “Doesn’t matter what their skill level is, anyone who takes that position is a nutter or an idiot.” There was a murmur of agreement from the others and the conversation shifted over to lighter matters.

Eventually the sweets trolley came around and they each got up to buy their pick. Kyra, as always, refused to try anything remotely weird looking and stuck with her usual Pumpkin Pasty and Cauldron Cake; Michael bought a box of moving jelly slugs; Annie bought herself a small army of Chocolate Frogs; and Ava bought several boxes of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans and a few Chocolate Frogs. While she had gotten most of the Bertie Bott’s for herself, the rest was going to Zack, whom she always bought some for. She gave the trolley woman her money and stepped back inside.

Kyra’s face scrunched up at the sight of Ava’s choice. “Why do you always get those?”

“I didn’t get them for me, Kyra, I got them for you,” she replied, opening a box and picking out a yellow one. “Hm. This is either butterbeer or piss. Try it?” She offered it to Kyra, who shrunk back. Ava shrugged and popped it into her own mouth. “Nevermind, it’s rotten egg.”

“Disgusting,” Kyra said.

“Delicious,” Ava countered, and tried another one. “See, that one was candy floss. Don’t knock it ‘till you try it, Kyra.”

“I’ll happily knock it, thanks,” said Kyra irritably as she took a bite of her Cauldron Cake. “I’ll live not trying anything that tastes inedible. Or moves,” She added, watching the chocolate frog Annie had just opened leap across the room and closer to Ava. Annie’s cat watched it carefully and Ava quickly scooted away. She would not be mistakenly attacked by a clawed animal because of an enchanted sweet, thank you very much.

“The jelly slugs are basically gummy worms,” Michael reassured her, picking one up and offering it towards her. “And they’re so slow they barely move.”

“I’m good,” Kyra muttered, looking at the candy in a very concerned manner.

Annie caught her frog and bit off its head. She glanced at the card. “Oh, look, I got Mopsus! I haven’t gotten him before. He was a Seer,” she explained.

“He was cool,” Kyra said, glancing over at the card. “Show it to Professor Minou.”

Annie nodded. “I will,” she said, smiling.

Eventually one of the prefects came by to tell them that they would be arriving soon. They changed into their robes and grabbed their luggage as the train pulled to a stop. Annie ushered her cat back into its carrier, which Ava was immensely grateful for. Gathering their things, they exited the compartment and stepped off the train.

Chapter 2
Sunday, September 1, 1979

Zack Johnson was leaning against one of the horseless carriages when the other students arrived. When he saw Ava and the others, he raised his hand in a mock wave. “Hey,” he greeted. They each offered their own greetings and proceeded to climb into the carriage.

Arthur was waiting inside. Zack and Arthur had been waiting there for about ten minutes, but when they had heard the train pull up, Zack had gotten out to wait for the others.

“How was the train?” Arthur asked.

“Good,” Michael said. “How’s Hogsmeade?”

“Eh, the usual,” Zack shrugged. “Hogsmeadey.”

“Hogsmeadey?” Annie questioned as the carriage started to move

“Yeah. Hogsmeadey, adjective. To have the quality of Hogsmeade.”

Ava rolled her eyes. “Here, take this, Hogsmeadian,” she said, shoving the sweets she’d bought at him.

“Thanks, love,” he said, grinning.

“Get a room,” Kyra quipped, something she always did whenever something even slightly romantic occurred between the two. Ava gave a very short laugh.

“You’re one to talk,” Zack retorted. “How much time did you and Michael spend together this summer, exactly?” Michael’s face went red.

“Lots,” Kyra shot back, smirking, and Michael’s complexion went from tomato to pomegranate.

“Ah, congrats, man,” Zack grinned, leaning over and clapping Michael’s shoulder. “Good job.” Michael glared at him. “Kidding, kidding. So, any bets on what crazy shit Dumbledore will say this year?”

“Something hopeful and awe-inspiring, but not too awe-inspiring,” Kyra said.

“Probably make us feel bad about ourselves,” Ava said dully. “Try to convince us all to ‘join together’ and ‘deny the evil within’ or whatever.”

“I think it’ll be a good speech,” Annie said thoughtfully. “He is a bit weird, though.”

“A bit,” Kyra laughed. “The man’s crazy. Very talented, very intelligent, would never mess with him. But he’s mad.”

“Hey, that’s not always a bad thing,” Arthur said. “Makes him more interesting, anyway.”

“He’s probably the most interesting person in the United Kingdom,” Michael said. “Have you ever read about some of his accomplishments? You could write books and books about him. Make movies about him.”

“Movies?” Annie frowned. “Like...muggles’ version of moving pictures?”

“We’ll show you some one day, Annie,” Zack said. “Star Wars is good.”

“Star Wars? The stars are fighting?” Annie asked in disbelief. “How does that work? Is it something to do with astromancy?”

“Maybe. No idea what that is,” Zack said in reference to the ‘astromancy’ word. Something to do with divination, maybe. “We’ll show it to you. No spoilers.”

“Okay,” Annie said, obviously skeptical.

The carriage pulled to a stop in front of the castle and they clambered out. Zack looked up at it; he was always astounded at how big the school was up close. The group climbed up the entrance steps and walked with the crowd of students into the Great Hall.

The Great Hall looked better than usual, as it always did at feasts. Hundreds of candles hung in the air by seemingly invisible strings. The ceiling showed the sky: almost dark, but with streaks of red still painted across. A few ghosts floated through the hall, saying hello to whichever students they liked.

Zack, Ava and Michael walked to the Gryffindor table while Annie moved to the Ravenclaws and Arthur and Kyra to the Hufflepuffs. They sat down, Zack in between them. There was still no feast on the table, unfortunately; it would only appeared after Dumbledore finished speaking.

“Look,” Michael muttered, staring up at the High Table. “The new Defense teacher.”

Zack looked over. Sitting towards the end was a tall, middle-aged man with tan skin and thick stubble. “How long until this guy bites it, you think?”

“Hm,” Ava studied him for a moment. “He might last awhile, but not forever. Spring, definitely.”

“I hope he’s good,” Michael said. “There hasn’t been a good one in...a while.”

“Here’s hoping,” Zack said, raising his empty goblet. “God knows we need one.” The other two nodded in agreement.

“Hey, guys,” Almost out of nowhere, Matt Parker sat down in front of them, his friends close behind him. He glanced up at the High Table, where they had been looking moments before. “His name’s Pyrites,” he said. “Former cursebreaker or something, I think. Apparently he isn’t incompetent, so, there’s that. So, you all have a good break?”

Matt Parker was in Zack and Ava’s year. His father was one of the school governors (probably where he had gotten this information from), he was a prefect, and he took Quidditch way too seriously. He was one of the Gryffindor team’s Chasers, and each year he made a huge bet on the Gryffindor-versus-Slytherin match with his younger brother Malcolm, the opposing team’s Keeper. Therefore, he always viewed Quidditch practice more like military training during the first couple months of the year to ensure a Gryffindor win. Zack wasn’t sure if he wanted to see what he and the new Captain Natalie would be like combined.

Michael nodded. “Yeah. A cursebreaker?”

Matt glanced up at Pyrites again. “Yeah, they work for Gringotts and break into tombs to find gold. Fairly dangerous job.”

“Yeah, he definitely picked a safe job here,” Ava muttered. Matt looked like he was about to say something, but just then, the doors opened.

In walked Professor McGonagall with the Sorting Hat and the first years. The talking quieted down and the group walked to the very front. Professor McGonagall set the Sorting Hat up on a stool, stepped back, and the hat started to sing its song.

When Zack was younger, the Hat’s songs had been mostly cheerful, talking about the different Houses and their traits (which Zack still didn’t understand the point of–couldn’t they just mix everyone up instead?). Slowly over the years, though, Zack had noticed its song becoming more somber. This year was no exception; the Hat sang about unity, optimism (even though song didn’t sound very optimistic), and strength.

After it finished, Zack applauded with everyone else. “That was uplifting,” he muttered to Ava.

“I liked it,” Ava said. “It really boosted my spirit. I feel like a new person. We should go sit over at the Slytherin table, I now have the sudden urge to be best friends with Veronica Leigh.”

Zack gave a short laugh and glanced over towards the Slytherins. “Yeah, and I’ll really hit it off with Lohse,” he said as Dumbledore stood to speak.

Dumbledore looked just as old, wise, and strange as he always did, his beard looking even longer than it had last year. “Welcome!” he said. “Before we start our ever-anticipated feast, a few short announcements. First, we are pleased to introduce Professor Pyrites, our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher.”

Pyrites nodded to the unenthusiastic applause. Zack knew the man wouldn’t be sitting there a year from now, but he hoped that, as Matt had said, he wasn't completely incompetent.

“As always,” Dumbledore continued. “The forest on the edge of the grounds is out of bounds for students...” The headmaster listed off his usual announcements, including the dates for Quidditch tryouts an almost amused warning against using magic in the corridors on Filch’s behalf. “Now,” he said. “Finally, what I know you have all been waiting for: the feast. Dig in!”

The feast and all of its glory appeared. Zack immediately began piling on more roast beef, potatoes, and trifle than he probably should be able to eat, but easily could. As they ate, he looked around the Hall and noticed a few missing faces. Students such as Calvin Rains from Ravenclaw and Listera Jones of Hufflepuff were nowhere to seen. Zack thought for a moment; he hadn’t seen anything in the papers about them and was sure he would have heard about any sort of attack or fatality of a Hogwarts student or their family. Whenever something like that happened (the numbers had been slowly increasing over the years), everyone knew about it, whether it be during school or during break. He decided that they must have pulled out of Hogwarts. Pretty stupid, he thought. Hogwarts is one of the safest places in the country now. He didn’t worry over it, though–if these students’ parents wanted to pull them out, then it was their problem, not his.

Chapter 3
Sunday, September 2, 1979

When Annie finally woke up, she was the last one in her dorm.

Forcing herself to sit up, she sighed. She had tried to get up earlier, she really had. At least she hadn’t completely slept in–Annie figured if she hadn’t asked Stella to wake her when before she went down to breakfast (something she only vaguely remembered the girl doing), she would still be asleep.

Annie stood up and stretched. Mornings were one of the worst parts about Hogwarts and she could only hope that her schedule allowed her some extra time to sleep in this year. She brushed her teeth, combed out her hair, got dressed, and finally trudged through the Ravenclaw Tower and down the spiral staircase to get to the Great Hall, where she happily sat down across from Stella Lohse.

“Morning, Annie,” she said. It looked like she had just finished eating. “I’ve got your schedule–here,” she handed a piece of paper to her. “You missed the owl post, too, so here’s this,” she handed her a small, emerald envelope. “Slug Club invite.”

Annie took the two items and nodded. “Thanks, Stella,” she said and started filling her plate for breakfast.

The Lohses were, in short, a well-known influential family full of absolute assholes. The family had been around for centuries and several members of the family were unafraid to use their name to make their position in society very clear to those around them. Stella and her older brother Lucian were the two eldest children of a Mister Pavor Lohse, a rather intimidating high-ranking ministry official, and a Misses Anne Lohse,  who though was less intimidating, seemed to have the same “holier than thou” aura as her husband. Given this prior knowledge, at a person’s first glance they may get the impression that tall, handsome and brooding Lucian was just as domineering as his father and that beautiful, blonde, and somewhat reserved Stella was just as haughty as her mother. Even after this first impression, some people are still led to these same opinions.

Annie liked Stella, though. She wasn’t the most open person in the world and wasn’t very easy to get to know, but Annie thought she still had a good heart. For example, during last year’s Defense Against the Dark Arts class with Professor Folle, the teacher had mistreated one of the Hufflepuffs in their class so badly the girl had run out of the room crying. Stella had gotten so angry that she had stood up and called the woman “a repugnant banshee without the possibility of a dream of marrying or even courting anyone short of a retired, alcoholic Gringotts goblin” straight to her face. Stella had gotten two weeks worth of detention, sure, but she had earned the title of Unofficial Favorite Ravenclaw by the Hufflepuffs.

Annie started eating, glanced at her timetable, and gave a small sigh. There was only one weekday where she had first period free. Oh, well–maybe this would be the year she’d start a real morning routine.

She then opened the familiar green letter from Slughorn. It was the invitation to Slughorn’s annual start-of-the-year dinner, taking place this Saturday night in his office. She had been invited to the “Slug Club” since she was a first year–probably because of her family’s name and status, but she liked to think it was because of her skills in Potions class, too.

Annie looked up and around the room. While most students had obviously eaten by now, there were still more people in the Hall than there usually would be at this time–everyone else was suffering the same case of tired as Annie was.

“Annie!” A voice called out. She looked up to see Rachel Hughes sit across from her and next to Stella.

“Hi, Rachel,” she said and smiled. “Sleep well?”

Rachel nodded. “Yeah, still tired though. I can never adjust to school schedules well,” she sighed. “Did you?”

“I’d hope so,” Stella said. “Took you long enough to wake up.”

Annie shrugged. “Bed’s just comfy, I suppose.”

“I’d hope so, you’ve got to sleep there almost ten out of twelve months of the year,” Rachel said. She glanced down at the letter still in Annie’s hands and grinned. “I can’t wait for Slug Club this year. I love Professor Slughorn.”

“He’s such a kiss-ass,” Stella murmured while taking a sip of her tea.

“Oh, definitely,” Rachel agreed. “But he’s great to talk to. I hope he doesn’t leave while we’re still here. I’d hate to get some asshole or something. Potions can be hard enough.”

“I like Potions,” Annie said. “It’s fun.”

“Because you’re so good at it, show off,” Rachel said and flicked a crumb at her.

“Not really. And you’re both good at Potions,” Annie insisted.

Stella laughed. “That’s hilarious. I hate Potions.”

“You hate most of your classes,” Rachel reminded her.

“True,” Stella admitted. “I’m incredibly grateful it’s Sunday today.”

“I’m sure you are,” Rachel said, suddenly grinning.

Stella rolled her eyes and glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to go. See you,” she said, stood up, and walked.

Annie looked at Rachel, raising an eyebrow in obvious bemusement. “She’s got a date,” Rachel explained, smirking. “Except she’s denying it’s a date, even though it’s a scheduled meetup initially asked by someone of the opposite sex, so don’t tell her I said she was going on one.”

“With who?” Annie asked, taking a final bite of her toast.

Rachel frowned a little, looking thoughtful. “I’m not totally sure,” she admitted. “She told me in passing last night after the feast and I couldn’t get a name out of her. I’ve got a few ideas, though. We’ll see. Want to go out to the lake?”

Annie nodded. “Sure,” she said.

Rachel stood up and Annie followed her. They walked out of the Great Hall and through the Entrance Hall, but as they went to turn into the courtyard, Annie walked straight into someone and stumbled back.

“Sorry,” she apologized, regaining her footing. She looked up. “Are you alright–?” She stopped as soon as she saw the person’s face. Malcolm Parker stood in front of her.

Malcolm had grown over the summer, but not by much. His hair was a little longer and his skin had a deeper tan to it. He looked good–much better than the last time she had seen or even talked to him, which had been in May. Annie felt like someone had dug their hand through her and twisted her insides. Her heart hurt.

“Fine,” he said. He didn’t quite meet her eyes, but he also didn’t avoid them. “Are you?” She nodded.

“Hey, Malcolm,” Rachel said rather quickly. Annie immediately turned to her, grateful for the excuse (or was it more of a distraction?) to look away. “Sleep well?”

“Yeah,” he said. “The dungeons are just as homey as always.”

“Glad to hear,” Rachel said. “I’d hate for you Slytherins to get too homesick. Hufflepuff’s just horrible, you know.”

Malcolm scoffed. “I’m sure. What a horrible house to be in,” he rolled his eyes.

“It is,” Rachel said. “Well, Annie and I are going to the lake, and you’re not invited, sorry.”

“Don’t get pulled in by the giant squid,” he joked. He glanced at Annie, gave a small half-smile, and then looked back at Rachel. “See you,” he said and walked away.

Rachel looked at Annie and smiled at her, but Annie could see the traces of sympathy in her eyes. “Come on, let’s go to the lake,” she said. Rachel linked arms with her and started walking.

Annie was quiet. It was stupid, really; she shouldn’t feel this sad. It had been months since she and Malcolm had broken up. She should have moved on a long time ago. Maybe it was because of the summer break–had she not been around Malcolm for a long enough period of time after the breakup to truly move on? Maybe. It seemed like he had moved on, though. He looked much happier than he had last spring.

Either way, she shouldn’t be feeling the way she did. Annie had been the one to break up with him, afterall.

Chapter 4
Monday, September 3, 1979

On Monday morning, Ava couldn’t force herself to be in a good mood if she tried. It had taken her hours to fall asleep, and when she had finally succeeded it was restless and uncomfortable. Naturally, of course, this led her to waking up late, giving her only enough time to grab a few of the last remaining pieces of toasts from the Great Hall as she walked to her first class.

Ava was in her sixth year at Hogwarts, having taken the OWLs the previous year. She’d done well on them for the most part and had gotten into the classes recommended to become an Auror. Well, aside from Herbology anyway–she could pretty much kill any plant by coming within a few inches of it. That was okay, though, she had reasoned–Herbology was only recommended, not required, and she was taking Alchemy this year to make up for it. Surely Alchemy could replace a stupid subject like plant-growing, right?

She was sure, nearly positive in fact, that she wanted to become an Auror. The job sounded right up her alley. Her best class was Defense Against the Dark Arts, even with Hogwarts’ inability to keep the same professor for more than a year. Ava had even gotten an O in the subject on her O.W.L. She wanted to help people and stop dark wizards and witches like Voldemort.

Maybe part of her motivation to become an Auror was really because of Voldemort and the Death Eaters–had she taken offense at their actions on a personal level? Yes. How dare they try to insinuate that Ava didn’t belong in this world! Just because she hadn’t grown up exposed to magic didn’t mean she didn’t have the power to blow them up with it if she wanted to. While it was true that the Death Eaters’ aim was more directed towards muggleborns (Ava had no idea whether she was muggleborn or half-blood–her father had left them when she was a baby), she might as well be one. And the muggles? If any of them ever tried to hurt her mother, she’d walk straight up to Voldemort and punch him in his stupid, ugly face.

Ava stuffed the last bite of toast into her mouth and walked into the new Professor Pyrites’ room. She sat down next to Zack, who was sitting at a table near the back.

“Hey,” he said. “Wake up late?” She shot him a rather angry look. “So, yes,” he confirmed. She nodded. “Did you get breakfast?”

“Barely,” she deadpanned.

“Let’s go down to the kitchens after this, you’ll probably get a way better breakfast down there anyway.”

Ava nodded. “Sure,” she said as the door to the Professor’s office opened and Pyrites stepped out.

Ava could get a better look at him now. Pyrites was a handsome man with well-combed hair and very dark brown eyes. He wore nice but simple black robes and white gloves.

“Good morning, class,” he greeted, stepping to the front of the room. A few mumbled “good mornings” were returned to him. The man raised an eyebrow, but said nothing of the unenthusiastic reply. “You are here, I would hope, because you want to be. I understand that your previous instructors in this subject have not always found it in themselves to be able to properly teach you–” there was some snickering across the room from several students, “–but considering that you have all achieved at least an ‘Exceeds Expectations’ on your O.W.L., I trust that you will not need to rely solely on myself to prepare yourself for your N.E.W.T. You will use this class period to review the first chapter of your textbook. It should be a fair amount of review, so I hope it won’t take up too much of your valuable time. You will answer these questions,” he motioned to the chalkboard, where a long list of numbers was written. “at the end of the chapter and have them complete by time you return to this classroom. Yes, I understand that you have no desire to do this,” he said at the class’ immediate unhappy muttering. “I assure you I have no desire to check these papers. However, as soon as we finish up this chapter–which I hope very much to be this week–we will move onto bigger, better, and more exciting things. Work quietly.”

With that, Professor Pyrites turned around, sat at his desk, began to read a very thick, musty, old looking book, and did not look back up at the class. Even so, Ava had a feeling the man could still closely observe the entire room with ease.

Zack sighed and muttered something under his breath that while Ava could not hear, could easily understand the meaning of. She nodded and pulled out her textbook, parchment, and quill. Ava couldn’t tell if Pyrites was going to be her new favorite or most hated teacher, but she was sure he was going to make a strong impression on herself and the student body.

Ava skimmed through the chapter and started working on the questions. It was mostly review, thankfully, and she finished a good amount of the questions by the time the bell rang to signal the next period.

Ava shoved her things in her bag and stood up. Zack stood, stretching. “Kitchens?” he asked.

She nodded. “Kitchens,” she agreed.

They walked down the stairs and through the basement corridor to the kitchens, passing a few Hufflepuffs that gave them questioning but friendly looks and a hallway of unused rooms. Finally they reached the large painting of a bowl of fruit that covered the entrance to the kitchens. Zack reached up, tickled one of the pears in the picture, and the canvas swung open to reveal the kitchen.

They walked in and were immediately greeted by a dozen house elves.

“What would you like, sir and miss?” squeaked one of them.

Zack looked to Ava. She shrugged. “Uh...well, I didn’t get breakfast, so maybe bac–”

Almost immediately they were brought two chairs, a small table, and pitchers of juice. Quickly following were about a dozen plates full of toast, eggs, potatoes, mushrooms, fruit, doughnuts, and as she had been just about to say, bacon.

“Thanks,” she said, impressed. She sat down.

Zack grinned and sat. “I love house elves,” he said as he began to serve himself.

Ava nodded and started to eat. “Didn’t you already eat?”

“Yeah,” Zack said. “This is second breakfast.”

Ava rolled her eyes. “You’re lucky your broom can still carry you with the way you eat.”

“I’m all muscle, love,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “It’s why I’m the Number One Beater in the Hogwarts Quidditch League.”

“You’re the Number One Beater?” Ava asked, scandalized. “That’s me, I think. You get too many penalties fighting with Lucian.”

“Hey,” he said, pointing a piece of bacon at her and scowling. “Those are on him, the git. Not me.”

“You tried to hit him in the head with your bat last year.”

“Yeah, because he tried to knock me off my broom with his,” he argued.

“You’re both equally bad,” Ava said. “The only person more violent than the two of you is Veronica Leigh, and even she manages not to get as many penalties as the two of you.”

Lucian Lohse was one of the Slytherin Quidditch team’s Beaters; Ava and Zack were Gryffindor’s. Zack and Lucian had been rivals since their very first match against each other. No one was quite sure how exactly it was started–everyone told the story differently, even the students that had been at the match that had no bias to either team. Whatever had happened, the two now tried nothing short of nearly killing each other at each match. It made the already intense Gryffindor versus Slytherin games even more brutal than they already were.

Veronica Leigh was the Slytherin team’s other Beater. While it was true Zack and Lucian were considerably more motivated to succeed in their role as Beater than Veronica, Veronica didn’t need any motivation; she had violence in her blood. Veronica was a seventh year and Ava couldn’t help but wonder if she had a mug or t-shirt somewhere that read ‘JUNIOR DEATH EATER LEAGUE’. Veronica’s favorite pastimes included harassing muggleborns, setting weird spells on helpless small animals, and practicing her Beater skills to get her aim just right so that she could hit other players in the back of the skull.

“At least we don’t send every player on the opposite team to the hospital wing,” Zack protested.

Ava smirked. “Are you defending Lucian, now?”

Zack’s eyes widened for a moment before he scowled deeply. “No,” he said and took an angry bite of toast.

“Oh, don’t take your denial out on the toast, Zack,” Ava said. “It hasn’t done anything to you.”

“It hasn’t,” he agreed. “Lucian has.”

“You’re such a boy,” Ava said, shaking her head but with a small, affectionate smile on her face. She took a final bite of her food and pushed the plate away. “Come on, let’s go back to the common room.”

“But I’m not done eating,” Zack said, looking down at his half-empty plate.

“You already ate,” Ava reminded him. She stood up and looked towards the house elves. “Thanks for the food,” she said. They nodded eagerly and started to clean up the table.

“Anything for the miss and sir!” one of them said happily.

Zack stood up. “Ready to go?” Ava asked.

“Well, I am now,” Zack muttered, but took her arm and started walking.

“You’ll survive until lunch,” she teased as they left the kitchen and returned to the empty basement hallway.

“Doubtful,” Zack said. “I’ll starve to death before next period.”

“How sad,” Ava sighed. “Oh well.”

“Oh well?”

“Yeah. I think I’ll be able to move on.”

“Really?” Zack stopped.

“Yeah,” she said and looked over at him. “Pretty sure.”

He stepped closer to her and wrapped his hands around her back. “Positive?”

“Yeah,” Ava said, and her breath hitched a little. Her chest suddenly felt much tighter. “Positive.”

He kissed her. “I’m kind of hurt.”

“You should be,” she replied quickly.

Zack kissed her again and this time did not stop. Ava kissed him back, like she had done so many times before. But something felt...off. Why? It should have felt just the same as it always did, and in some ways, it did. Yet, there was something that felt incredibly...wrong about the whole thing. Zack’s hands started to slip lower and her chest twisted itself into a very tight knot. She stepped back, pulling away from his arms. “Want to go to the library?” she asked. “I think I need to check something out to answer one of the questions on Pyrites’ assignment–the textbook wasn’t very descriptive.”

Zack blinked, obviously surprised, and Ava felt a surge of guilt go through her. “Sure,” he said. “If you want.”

She nodded and started to walk again. Ava heard Zack’s footsteps begin to follow her after a few seconds, but she did not look back at him. Ava didn’t want to think about what she had just felt, and if that meant a long walk of silence to the library, then so be it.

Chapter 5
Tuesday, September 11, 1979

Kat walked out of her common room with a look of utter smugness–a dangerous but well deserved move on the muggleborn’s part.

Chaser–Katherine Murray. She had made the Quidditch team! After two years of disappointment, the third time really was a charm.

Tryouts had been last Friday and it was now Tuesday. Kat was not a patient person and the waiting had practically been torture. Running down to the common room to check the notice board for the list had been the first thing she’d done that morning. And there, right there, was her very own name.

She had wanted to play Quidditch since the first time she saw a game at the age of ten. All of the players had been no more than the age of fourteen, the brooms had been ancient and slow, and they hadn’t had a real snitch or bludgers, but it had been wonderful! Kat had been nowhere near good enough to get on the team when she was younger, but during her third year she had been confident she would be taken on as a backup player. No such luck then or the year afterwards. They had a new Captain this year, though–Lucian was finally replacing the awful purist boy that had graduated the previous spring. And now she was on the team! Kat wondered briefly if she would have made it on earlier if Lucian had been Captain before, but didn’t dwell on it. She was on the team now and that was all that mattered.

Kat strided into the Great Hall with a skip in her step and sat down across from Malcolm. “Morning,” she chirped, reaching for the toast and marmalade.

“Hey,” he said, looking up from his Arithmancy textbook. “Congrats on Chaser.”

“Thanks,” she smiled. “Congrats on Keeper, again,”

“Thanks,” he said. “Lucian will be a good Captain, probably. Hopefully we get the Quidditch Cup this year.”

“We will,” Kat said confidently. “We’ve got a good team.”

Malcolm nodded. “We almost won last year,” he said. He looked over to the other side of the room at the Gryffindor table and scowled. Kat followed his glare and thought she saw him looking at his brother. She turned back to him and grinned. “Still bitter over that bet, huh?”

“Yes,” he muttered. “We were so damn close.”

“This year,” Kat said brightly and took a bite of her toast. “Have you figured out the wager for this year yet?” Malcolm shook his head. “Well, you better hurry,” she said seriously. “There’s barely over two months left. Can’t wait long for those kinds of things, you know–”

Kat felt a very sudden shove at her back and her ribs hit the side of the table. Ow, she thought, and turned to see what had happened.

Veronica Leigh and a few of her equally awful friends were a few feet away, walking towards the doors of the Great Hall and laughing. Veronica looked at her. “Sorry, mudsy,” she sneered. “Saw you actually got onto the team–what’d you have to do, shag Lohse?”

Kat’s face flushed red with anger. “No, I got on because I can play. He got Captain because he’s good, too. You, though–I bet you couldn’t get Captain even after trying to ride Slughorn, though, right?”

Veronica’s grin faded quickly into a look of hatred. “How dare you, you filthy–”

“Veronica,” Malcolm interrupted. “I hate to interrupt what were probably some very wise, sophisticated words, but I think I just heard Slughorn calling for you out in the hallway,” he said, pointing to the doors.

Veronica fixed her glare to Malcolm for a moment, looked back at Kat, and then turned around and stormed out of the Great Hall.

Kat turned to Malcolm and started laughing, releasing a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “That felt good.”

Malcolm grinned. “That was brilliant, Kat,” he said.

“She’s going to hate me now,” Kat said, feeling a bit of worry in her chest, but couldn’t help from smiling. “You, too, probably.”

He shrugged. “She already hated both of us.”

“True,” Kat agreed. “Mudbloods and blood traitors, right?”

“Exactly. The best kinds of wizards and witches,” he said, nodding.

“Who are?” Arcanna Phan asked as she sat down next to Malcolm. Kat noticed him quickly close his Arithmancy book and shove it in his bag as he scooted over to make room for her. “Not you, I’d hope. I’d lose hope in wizardkind.”

“Both Kat and I, actually,” Malcolm said. “Mudbloods and blood traitors.”

“Oh, right,” Arcanna said, rolling her eyes and pushing a strand of her long shiny dark brown hair behind her ear. “I forgot, you guys are right at the top of the food chain, aren’t you?”

Kat nodded. “Most definitely. We’re ruling over everyone, especially families like the Leighs.”

“Oh, the Leighs, how unworthy are they to even set foot in your presence,” Arcanna said, voice practically dripping in sarcasm as she scooped a serving of scrambled eggs onto her plate. “Please, accept me as worthy enough to even grovel before you.”

“Eh. I guess,” Malcolm said.

“Thanks,” Arcanna said as she took a bite of eggs. “Appreciate it.”

Malcolm grinned. “No problem, Canna.”

Kat quickly looked between the two and then glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to go talk to McGonagall before class, need to make sure I did the assignment right.” She stood and shifted her bag onto her shoulder. “See you Malcolm, Arcanna,”

“See you,” they both chorused simultaneously.

Kat smiled and walked away. This is going to be a good year, she decided. She walked out of the Great Hall thinking of Quidditch and of her friends and of school, any concerns of Veronica Leigh disappearing from her thoughts.

Chapter 6
Friday, September 28, 1979

Over three weeks had passed since the start of school and September was coming to a close. Zack thought the teachers were trying to kill them with work–even with the extra free periods there was barely enough time to get it all done. Did Zack enjoy his classes? Yes, of course, especially now that he was able to get rid of unwanted core classes such as Potions. Did Zack sometimes hate his professors, the ungodly amount of homework they assigned, and the large amount of studying and practicing that came with it? Hell yes.

It probably didn’t help that Zack spent a good amount of time thinking about Ava. What had happened? It had seemed fine, it had been fine, for over nearly three years! Now, was he just imagining it or was it really true that it seemed she could barely look at him?

Had he done something? Zack couldn’t think of anything that might upset Ava. Had Ava done something? Ava wouldn’t cheat, would she? Of course she wouldn’t. So what was wrong?

As Zack walked back from the Great Hall to his dormitory after dinner, he was so lost in his thoughts that he nearly missed the two obviously upset girls walking quickly past him, one talking quickly and quietly to the other.

Yet, he didn’t. Zack turned. “Rachel? Annie? What’s wrong?”

The two girls turned. Annie’s arms were wrapped tightly around herself and her eyes were red and puffy from crying. Rachel had one of her arms linked with Annie’s and her eyes were tinged red as well.

Annie covered her mouth with her hand and held back a sob. “Z-Zia t-tried to kill-kill herself,” she choked out.

Oh. Zack immediately stepped forward and hugged her. Annie sobbed again. He had to think for a moment–who was Zia again? The image of a short, brown haired Ravenclaw girl appeared in his mind. She was in Annie and Rachel’s year, wasn’t she? Annie and Zia must have been roommates.

“They-they found her an hour ago,” Annie muttered. “She..she was...they brought-brought her to the infirmary.”

“I’m sorry,” Zack said. “She’ll be okay, though. They’ve got magic.”

Annie gave a small nod and stepped back from him, wiping at her eyes. “It-it’s just...she seemed so happy. It didn’t...I don’t know why...it doesn’t make sense.”

Zack nodded. “She’ll get help,” he said. “Is she still in the infirmary?”

Annie shook her head. “I don’t know,” she mumbled. “They might’ve taken her to St. Mungo’s,” she said, referring to the wizarding hospital in London.

Zack nodded and hugged her again. “She’ll be alright,” he reassured her. Annie nodded, hugged him, and stepped back. Zack looked over to Rachel, who stood off to the side. She looked up from the ground and to the two of them. She gave a small smile.

“She will, Annie,” Rachel said. “You know Zia. She’ll make it out of this.”

Annie nodded. “Yeah,” she said quietly. She looked up at Zack. “Thank you,” she said, managing a weak smile.

“Of course,” Zack said sincerely. “If you want to talk, then just come find me.”

She nodded again. “Let’s go,” she muttered to Rachel and started walking away.

Rachel nodded and looked over to Zack. “Library tomorrow?” she asked quietly.

Zack nodded. They had a lot to talk about.

***

Saturday, September 29, 1979

Word of Zia and her attempted suicide spread through the school like wildfire–Zack had barely walked into his common room when he heard conversation of it. Zack didn’t bother partaking in it, instead opting to go up to his dorm instead. Still, he worried about the girl and decided that, if she were in the infirmary and taking visitors, he would go and talk to her the next day.

So that next morning, Zack went to the infirmary right after breakfast, it being a Saturday and therefore having no worries on Madam Pomfrey dismissing him due to his missing class or studying. Even so, when he walked in, the matron still sent him off.

“She’s not taking any visitors today, sorry,” the nurse said.

“Will she be soon?” he asked.

The nurse shook her head. “She’s not decided yet. I’m sure you’ll hear from one of the many students that have tried getting in here half a dozen times today when she’s taking visitors.”

Madam Pomfrey went back to her work and Zack turned and walked away, passing a couple of Ravenclaws carrying flowers as he left the infirmary.

Zack wasn’t surprised–he had figured that Zia wouldn’t be accepting visitors, but had wanted to try anyway. He would try again, later, but for now he headed to the library. It was earlier than his and Rachel’s usual meeting time, but that was fine; he needed to work on his Transfiguration paper, anyway.

Zack walked up to the library and took a seat at one of the tables near the back of the library. He pulled out his books and essay and started to work, but couldn’t will himself to concentrate enough to write more than a few sentences. He had barely gotten two lines down when Veronica, Adriane, and Daman sat down on the other side of the room.

Oh, great, he thought. These assholes.

Veronica alone was bad enough, but Adriane Smythe and Daman Jolicoeur completed the Holy Trio of Shitty Human Beings. Adriane was the Queen Bee of the less-than-kind students of Slytherin House, Veronica and Daman being her two main Worker Bees, Daman especially. While Zack had had as little interaction with the them as possible, even he knew Daman followed Adriane around like a lost puppy, following her every wish and command. Even so, Daman was a very talented wizard had injured many students through various spells. Sure, some of these were unproven, but everyone knew it led back to Daman and the trio.

Zack ignored them, not in the mood to deal with the three of them. He tried shift his focus back onto the paper, but only minutes had passed when he noticed the three of them glancing over at him. They were speaking with each other, too quietly and too far away for Zack to hear anything, but he could’ve sworn he saw them look at him. If they wanted to start something with him, then fine, he was game.

Daman stood up and stretched. Zack reached towards his wand. Daman started walking in his direction. Zack tensed, ready to fight–

“Hey,” Rachel suddenly sat down in front of him. Her curly hair was disheveled and the bags under her eyes were worse than usual. “You’re early, usually I’m here first. Then again, I just woke up.”

Zack glanced between her and Daman, who was now looking through one of the book shelves. Had Rachel disrupted Daman’s plan of attack, or was Zack just paranoid?

“Yeah,” he said, looking back to her. “Needed to work on Transfiguration homework. Didn’t sleep well?”

Zack and Rachel had basically grown up together–both thrown into the Ministry’s version of a foster home for Hogwarts students in Hogsmeade at around the same time and neither actually being old enough to attend Hogwarts. Now, it being almost seven years later, the two were practically siblings. Even though Zack was a year ahead of her and in a different house, they were both still close and met at the library on a regular basis to talk.

Rachel sighed. “Not at all,” she said. “Did you?”

“Eh.”

She nodded. “At least it’s Saturday,” she muttered. “No class. How’s your homework going?”

“It’s not.”

“You’ve got time. Weekends exist for a reason,” she said, giving a reassuring smile before her tone turned more serious. “How are you?”

“Fine,” he responded truthfully. “Just..it’s disturbing. How’s Annie?”

“Yeah,” she said. “She’s just shaken up. Zia’s one of her roommate, afterall.”

“‘Course,” he said. “Are you?”

Rachel nodded. “It’s just...I don’t know her very well, but she seemed very happy. I know that sounds pretty cliché, but..it’s true,” Rachel frowned and looked around the library. “Anyone else been in here, aside from them?” She nodded over towards the group of Slytherins.

Zack shook his head. “No,” he said. “Why?”

Rachel lowered her voice. “Apparently one of the second years fell off of the moving staircases.”

“What?” Zack looked at her, surprised. “A first year, maybe, but a second year?”

“Yeah,” Rachel nodded. “I guess his friends didn’t even see him fall–one minute he was right behind him, the next the next he was gone. I understand it’s easy to trip on those things, but to just fall off? That...well, it’s a feat.”

Zack frowned, thinking. “Do you think he fell on purpose?”

Now it was Rachel’s turn to look surprised. “I’d doubt it,” she said. “I mean, I think his friends were right there. Then again, you can’t really trust anything you hear at Hogwarts.”

“Maybe,” he muttered. “I guess.”

Rachel looked down at the table, thoughtful. “It is weird, though,” she admitted. “Two serious things like that happening with students so soon together. Of course, the moving staircases aren’t exactly safe, but...Well, he’s going to be okay, anyway, from what I’ve heard.”

“That’s good,” Zack said. “He’s in the infirmary?”

Rachel nodded. “I think so. I hope they didn’t have to bring him to Saint Mungo’s, that’d be awful. Madam Pomfrey is good, though.”

“The best, she is,” Zack agreed. “Listen...can I get advice?”

“Sure,” she said, frowning a little. “What is it?”

“It’s about Ava,” he said. “She’s acting...different. Everything seemed fine, but out of nowhere she started acting just...different. She won’t talk to me as much, she won’t kiss me, she won’t be alone with me, it’s like she’s going out of her way to avoid me. But I didn’t do anything. It was like...everything was great one moment, and literally a second later she can barely look at me,” he said miserably.

Rachel frowned, thinking. “You’ve tried to talk to her about it?”

“She changes the topic, if I even get the chance to ask her.”

She was silent for a moment. “...You’re sure everything was good before?”

He thought for a moment. “I guess we didn’t spend as much time together last summer as we usually do...but that was her call, not mine.” As he said it, he realized that maybe things hadn’t been perfect before. Ava had always said she was busy or unable to travel to Hogsmeade over the summer–had that really been true?

Rachel nodded. “Does she act this way with anyone else?”

“No.”

“Well...I don’t know, Zack, I’m sorry. She might just be stressed out right now and wants to focus on things like school over relationships and isn’t handling it well. How long has this been going?”

“Almost three weeks,” he muttered.

Rachel was silent for a moment, thinking. “Okay. Try to reach out to her, but if she doesn’t respond, give it another week or two. It’s still the first month back into school–she might not be dealing with it well. I can’t see Ava acting that way for much longer than that without actually saying something about it or going back to normal. You’re sure you didn’t do anything?”

“Positive,” Zack said to Rachel’s somewhat skeptical look, but she nodded.

“Just give her some time and space,” she said, smiling a little. “She’ll figure it out.”

He nodded, still unconvinced. “Yeah,” he muttered.

Zack looked up at the sound of footsteps. Malcolm Parker came walking quickly over to them. He was pale and looked nearly sick. “Rachel,” he said quickly. “Prefects’ meeting, now.”

Rachel’s expression immediately turned to one of concern. “What happened?” she asked.

“It’s Kat,” Malcolm said, face almost expressionless but his voice very dark. “She tried to jump off the Bell Tower.”

Chapter 7
Wednesday, October 3, 1979

The next few days at Hogwarts were some of the strangest Michael had ever seen. The mood of everyone around him was much duller than it had been just the week before. And after what had happened, what else could be expected?

Not only this, but the Ministry had gotten involved at Hogwarts. Afterall, three students dying in less than twenty-four hours, at least two of them with definite suicidal intentions? Even for Hogwarts it was a little too out out there.

Kat, Zia, and the boy that had fallen, a second year Hufflepuff named Caden, were all supposed to be fine, but would not be back in class until next week. Michael was relieved, especially about Kat. He hadn’t visited her yet, but he would soon–Madam Pomfrey had said she could start taking visitors tonight at the earliest, and Michael was headed straight to the infirmary right after dinner.

As Michael sat through History of Magic, he couldn’t help but think of everything that had happened. Michael didn’t get it. Why had Kat done it? There was no reason for Kat to try to jump off the Bell Tower. He had talked to her just hours before it had happened and she had seemed just fine. Michael wondered if he had missed something, something she might have said or done, that would have alerted him to her future plans. Could he have stopped her from trying? Could anyone have stopped her? It made him feel sick just to think about it. He could only be thankful that there were spells placed around the towers as a precaution against falling students–whether it be on accident or on purpose.

The sound of a bell interrupted his thoughts, signaling the end of the class period and the beginning of lunch hour. Oh, no, he thought, looking up at Professor Binns and the rest of the class. He had completely zoned out and had absolutely no idea what the ghost had been talking about. History of Magic was truly one of his favorite and best classes, something his friends thought he was crazy for, and he had missed every word his teacher had said. Sure, that was what almost everyone else in the class went through every day, but Michael refused to lower his standard. Michael quickly stood and walked over to Eve Zycia, a very smart, blonde Hufflepuff girl that could only be described as “bubbly.” Eve, like Michael, actually enjoyed and paid attention to History of Magic.

“Hey, Eve,” he said. “Could I borrow your notes? I’ll get them right back to you–I kind of zoned out in class,” he admitted.

Eve smiled and nodded. “Sure!” she said and handing him her notebook. “Don’t worry, it was kind of boring today–you didn’t miss too much.”

“Thanks, Eve,” he said, smiled.

“You’re welcome! See you, Michael,” she gathered her things and left the classroom.

Michael went back to his chair, set his own things in his bag, and started walking to lunch, flipping through Eve’s notebook on his way. Today’s lessons had been over the goblin rebellions. While Michael was disappointed he hadn’t listened to everything Binns had said, as he found the rebellions very interesting, he was relieved it had only been over some of the causes and not the battles themselves. Eve had taken good notes, though–he would be fine for the next test.

Michael entered the Great Hall and sat down at the Gryffindor table. He served himself a cheese sandwich and started copying Eve’s notes over to his own notebook. By the time he was nearly finished writing, Zack sat down next to him and started to eat.

“Hi,” Michael said, looking up.

“Hey,” he muttered back.

Michael closed the notebooks and put them back into his bag. “How was, uh...Care for Magical Creatures?”

Zack shrugged. “It was okay,” he said. “Learned about Glumbumbles, but it was kind of boring. Didn’t really pay attention.”

Michael wondered briefly what a Glumbumble was, but didn’t ask. “It’s okay, I didn’t pay attention during History of Magic.”

“Wow, I wonder how why,” Zack said, rolling his eyes. “Glad I got out of that class.”

“It’s interesting,” Michael defended one of his favorite classes. “You just have to get past the way Professor Binn’s talks, that’s all. I wish I paid attention. I just...couldn’t.” Michael frowned, thinking. “Do you want to go try to visit Kat with me after supper? Madam Pomfrey said she might be able take visitors tonight.”

Zack nodded. “Sure,” he said.

Michael nodded and stood. “I’m going to ask Arthur–he’ll want to, they’re really good friends.” He turned around and walked over to the Hufflepuff table, where Arthur sat near Kyra. “Hey,” he said, sitting down.

Arthur looked over at him. “Hey,” he greeted. “How’re you?”

“Good,” Michael said. “You?”

“Pretty good,” Arthur said, smiling. “Good day so far. Lunch is great, you try one of these biscuits?” he asked, holding up said dessert.

Michael shook his head. “No, not yet. Hey, you want to go visit Kat with me later? Madam Pomfrey said she might be able to take visitors after supper.”

Arthur’s face fell, portraying an emotion Michael couldn’t quite figure out. “Why do you want to visit her?”

Michael blinked, taken aback. “Well...she’s in the hospital wing. And..I mean, she probably wants to see her friends–”

“She’s fine,” Arthur said, turning away from Michael and back to his food. “I know everyone says she tried to jump off the Bell Tower, but that's just a rumor. There's no way she’d do that. You know her, Michael–Pomfrey’s probably just being strict about her release from the infirmary because of Zia and Caden. Kat’s fine.”

Michael frowned. “Arthur, she’ll want to see you, probably more than anyone else. You’re one of her best friends. She needs you.”

“No, she doesn’t,” he snapped. “It was just an accident, what happened. I’ll see her when Pomfrey decides to finally release her.” Arthur stood up and grabbed his bag. “I need to get to class. Bye, Michael,” he said, turned around, and walked out of the Great Hall.

Michael stared after him. What had just happened? Why was Arthur acting like this? Kat and the Bell Tower hadn’t been an accident, Arthur knew that. How could he be in denial, four days later?

“Michael?” Kyra’s voice interrupted his thoughts. He looked up to see her giving a small, reassuring smile. “He’s just upset, don’t take it personally. He’s just in denial about it. You know it’s gotta be hard on him, with his family and all.”

Arthur’s parents and brother had been killed two summers ago. While the Daily Prophet had called it a “freak accident”, in reality they had been murdered by some of You-Know-Who’s Death Eaters, his father being a muggle and his mother being a witch whose brave words of pro-muggle support had been spoken too well. While Arthur seemed to have moved on since then, his best friend nearly dying by her own choice couldn’t have been easy on him.

Michael nodded. “Do you want to go?” he asked her. “Zack is going, too.”

Kyra nodded and smiled. “Sure,” she said. “After supper?” Michael nodded. “Okay. If she isn’t, we’ll just try again later. I’m sure she’ll want to see her friends by now, it’s been days.” Kyra frowned. “You know...it’s all very weird. Why do you think she...you know, did it?”

Michael shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I have no idea.”

“Neither do I, and it’s awful,” Kyra said sadly. “We just need to be there for her.” Michael nodded, looking down at the table. “It’ll be okay, Michael,” she reassured him. “I’m sure it will be.”

“Yeah,” he muttered. He stood up. “See you, Kyra,” he said.

“Bye, Michael,” she said, smiling at him.

Michael turned and went back to sit at the Gryffindor table. Zack looked over at him. “What the hell happened to you?” he asked, seeing Michael’s very put out expression.

“Arthur won’t go,” Michael explained. “He’s...in denial or something about what Kat did.”

Zack frowned, looking thoughtful. “He’s been through a lot, Michael,” he said. “He probably doesn’t want to believe what happened. We’ll go visit Kat tonight and after we talk to her, maybe he’ll change his mind.”

“Yeah,” Michael said, nodding.

“Zack!” Natalie Cole came walking up to them. “Practice is being moved up from tomorrow to tonight, same time.”

“What?” Zack scowled. “Why?”

“Slytherin wanted to change times–don’t give me that look, Zack, it isn’t Lucian’s personal attack against you–so I told him we could do it. Tell Ava.”

“You tell her,” he said irritability, turning away from her and back to his plate, stabbing a piece of turkey with his fork.

Natalie raised an eyebrow. “Fine,” she said. “I expect the both of you to be playing to your best.”

The older girl turned and walked off to tell Ava, who was sitting farther down the table.

“Can’t go see Kat tonight, then,” Zack said after a moment, looking up at Michael. “Sorry,” he apologized. “Tomorrow.”

“It’s okay,” Michael said, smiling a little but feeling the opposite on the inside.. “So, how’s Quidditch going?”

“Good,” he muttered. “Prepping for the match against Slytherin next month. Of course, Slytherin’s got a great lineup this year, so Matt’s treating it all like a damn boot camp before heading to war, of course.”

Michael nodded. “I’m sure you guys will do great...Uh...will there be any empty spaces next year?”

Zack looked over at him. “You want to be on the team?”

“Yeah,” Michael admitted. “Just..I’m not very good at Quidditch. Haven’t played it that much.”

“I’ll train you,” Zack offered. “You’ve got the build of a Keeper, maybe a Chaser...I could see you being a Seeker...we’ll see what you do best in.”

Michael nodded eagerly. He’d wanted to be on the Quidditch team since his first year, particularly as the Gryffindor Seeker. Maybe next year would finally be his chance. “Thanks,” he said.

“Sure,” Zack shrugged. “We’ll start...I don’t know. This weekend?” Michael nodded. “Great. This weekend, you start your training.” Zack stood up, slinging his bag over his shoulder. “Gotta go. See you, Michael.”

“See you,” he said, waving after him. The thought of Kat disappeared from his mind, however briefly, and instead was replaced with the excitement of Quidditch.

***

After dinner that night, Michael met Kyra at the entrance to the Great Hall.

“Hi,” he said, walking up to her.

Kyra smiled. “Hi! Let’s go, I don’t want to deal with a bunch of other people in the infirmary and maybe there won’t be so many now.” Kyra grabbed his hand and they started walking to the hospital wing.

“Should we, uh, bring anything?” he asked, thinking.

“I don’t think so. We already left her cards earlier this week, and what else is there to bring, homework? She probably already has that...I would not want to be getting caught up on school in there...do you think they’re making her work on school?”

“Maybe.”

Kyra shook her head. “Teachers will stop at nothing to enforce their lessons. I mean, look at Binns, he’s dead and he’s still teaching!”

“I like Professor Binns,” Michael protested.

“I know, but you’re crazy,” Kyra teased as they walked up the stairs to the first floor. “The rest of us are sane enough not to be able to tolerate his class. I can’t wait until I can drop it next year. I’m going to completely fail the History of Magic O.W.L. Could you help me study?”

“Sure, but I’m a year behind you,” Michael reminded her.

“Yeah, but you still probably know everything better than me. I barely remember what we studied last year–something about the dwarf wars?”

“Goblin rebellions.”

“Right. That. Yeah, you have to help me study.”

Michael nodded. “Sure,” he said.

“Thanks,” Kyra said, leaning up on her tiptoes and kissing his cheek as they reached the entrance to the hospital wing. Michael felt his face turn a slightly redder shade.

They walked inside and Madam Pomfrey came out of her office. “Here to see Kat?” she asked.

Michael nodded. “Please.”

She nodded and led them to a curtained off bed at the end of the room, walking past two other curtained off areas on their way which could only have held Caden and Zia. “You have visitors, Kat,” Madam Pomfrey said and walked away, leaving them to talk.

Kat was laying in her bed, reading what looked like a textbook for Charms. Her long black hair was pulled into a very messy bun and she wore her pajamas. While she seemed a little paler and more tired than usual, she looked fairly normal, as if she were just doing her usual nightly studying. She looked up at them and smiled. “Hi, guys,” she said, putting her book aside. “Miss me? Madam Pomfrey wouldn’t let me have any visitors. It’s been so boring with just her, Caden, and Zia.”

Michael and Kyra sat down in chairs next to the bed. Kyra smiled. “We did miss you. We were just about to break you out, actually. We were starting to go through Kat-withdrawal,” she said seriously.

Kat laughed, rolling her eyes. “Right, I’m sure. Kat-withdrawal. Funniest thing I’ve heard all day.”

“It is,” Kyra laughed, and then her expression turned more serious. “How are you? We really have all missed you.”

Kat’s eyebrows scrunched up a bit. “I’m fine,” she said. “Really, aside from being stuck in here for days, I’m good. Trust me, I’ve been psychoanalyzed about a dozen times since Saturday.”

“Then what happened?” Michael asked in disbelief. “Why...why are you here in the first place?”

Kat frowned and looked down. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I mean...I do know. I tried to jump off the Bell Tower, I did try to kill myself, I’m sure everyone in the entire school has heard it. But...I don’t know. I just got so sad on Saturday. It was like...I didn’t think I could ever be happy again. There was no point to anything. It was miserable. And I was coming back from Herbology, and those thoughts wouldn’t stop, and there was the Bell Tower right there, and it just...made sense to go up there and, you know, end it.” Kat gave a shaky laugh. “Thank God for those safety spells, huh?”

“It just hit you out of nowhere?” Kyra asked, frowning. “The sadness?”

“Sort of,” Kat nodded. “Sort of gradual, but...very sudden, yeah. The same thing happened with Caden and Zia, I guess,” she said. “And all of us, we still felt it for about a day afterwards. I think they had to sedate Zia...Caden broke his leg and bruised up some bones, so he couldn’t do too much else...I was the good one, of course, though I think I might’ve cursed out Dumbledore when he suggested I might be given a sedative, too. Maybe they did give me a sedative, actually.”

“So you’re okay now?” Michael asked for reassurance. “You are happy?”

Kat nodded. “Of course! I can’t wait to get back to class. Do you really think I’d try to off myself after finally making that Quidditch team? No way. It’s just, Saturday...Honestly? It feels like a dream.”

Kyra stared at the wall, obviously deep in thought. “Do you know if the staff’s got any idea what happened to you?”

Kat shook her head. “They won’t say,” she said. She lowered her voice. “I think they think it’s to do with the Dark Arts, though...they brought in the Ministry, did you see that?” Kyra and Michael both nodded. “Yeah. No idea how someone could get away with so much dark magic inside Hogwarts. I’m sure if it is that, they’ll be caught...Maybe it was an accident or something, I don’t know.”

“Why would someone want to hurt you, though, Kat?” Michael asked.

Kat laughed. “I’m a Slytherin mudblood, Michael,” she said. “Not exactly the most popular among certain people throughout the school.”

Michael’s eyes widened, something suddenly clicking, but before he could say anything, Madam Pomfrey appeared.

“Alright, that’s enough for one night,” she said quickly. “Back to your dorms, curfew is soon.”

“But they just got here!” Kat protested.

“I don’t care, you need to sleep, Katherine,” Madam Pomfrey said. “You’ve spent all day with your face in your books.” She turned to Michael and Kyra. “You can come back later this week,” she said. “Now, go back to your dorms.”

Kat sighed. “See you, guys,” she muttered. “Come back soon.”

Kyra smiled at her. “We’ll be back, Kat,” she reassured her. “Kat-withdrawal, remember?”

“Yeah,” Michael agreed, though his mind was only focusing partially on the conversation. “Kat-withdrawal. We’ll be back.”

Kyra and Michael left the infirmary. As soon as they were in the hallway, Michael turned to her and started speaking in a quiet, rushed tone. “I think she kicked us out because she heard our conversation.”

“Well, yeah, that makes sense,” Kyra muttered. “Don’t want us talking about it. Stupid, though, it’s not like it’s that big of a deal.”

“No, it is,” Michael said. “Do you know what Zia and Caden’s blood statuses are?”

Kyra’s eyes widened. “Zia’s muggleborn,” she whispered. “And Caden...isn’t he–?”

Michael nodded. “Yeah. All three of them are muggleborn. All three of them had the sudden urge to kill themselves, with seemingly no explanation, within twenty-four hours of each other.”

Kyra stopped, staring at him, horrified. “Michael...you don’t think that...You-Know-Who has anything to do with this, do you?”

“I do,” he said. “Maybe not directly, but yeah. Supporters of him.”

“Oh my God,” she whispered, staring into space. Michael knew that she must have been thinking of her own family, all of them muggles. “That means it’s possible that...that..."

“The Death Eaters have gotten into Hogwarts,” Michael finished for her, and as he said it, it was like a weight was crushing into his chest as the realization set in. “And they nearly killed our friend.”

Chapter 8
Wednesday, October 3, 1979

Ava’s long walk from the Gryffindor common room to the dungeons for biweekly Alchemy had become one of her favorite pastimes.

The class was small and was only offered every other year. Slughorn taught it, as there was no reason to hire an extra teacher for a class that only met twice a week. While Ava didn’t care for the man, she still loved the class. She did very well in it, much better than she had expected. She enjoyed the people in the class, too, for the most part. That was lucky, considering there weren’t even a dozen of them in it.

The walk to class was solitary and gave her the time to think or not think–whatever she felt like, really. Ava didn’t have to worry about homework, because there was no reasonable way to do her homework while walking down the many stairs leading to the dungeons. She didn’t usually have to worry about people getting in her away, as not many people took the same path as her to get to the dungeons during that particular passing period. And she didn’t have to worry about avoiding Zack, because right then, there was no reason for Zack to be anywhere near her for her to avoid.

Ava knew it was ridiculous, avoiding Zack. She didn’t know what to do, though. She didn’t even know how she felt. She didn’t want to break up with Zack, she cared about him deeply. He was one of her best friends! Yet...something felt so wrong about their relationship...And whenever she thought about it enough to get near to figuring out what was wrong, the thoughts she had she didn’t like, and so Ava stopped thinking about them. Childish, yes, but it seemed to be working well enough for now. Still, though, it was only working for now, and even then, was it really working?

Ava sighed, stepped down onto the first floor, and starting making her way to the dungeon staircase. Maybe she should just stop avoiding Zack and try everything again. This was probably just some weird phase she was in, right? She and Zack just needed to interact again for a little while and then maybe everything would go back to normal. That day in the dungeons had just been an off day. It had been the first day of school, afterall. The first day of school was always a strange day.

That was a month ago today, Ava thought with a pang of surprise. It’s been a month since we’ve had a real conversation.

Yes, Ava decided then, she would try to reconnect with Zack. It had been a month. Surely that was enough time to get over whatever she had been feeling.

“Hey, Ava,” a voice said, and Ava looked up to see Matt Parker walking next to her. “Ready to learn about Paracelcus and his contributions to modern day muggle and wizarding medicine through his work with alchemy?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” she muttered. “Don’t like the history aspect of alchemy as much as the practical.”

“Neither do I,” he said, sighing. “We got out of History of Magic for a reason, Slughorn should understand this.”

“Didn’t Slughorn have Binns as a Professor? You’d think he’d know,” Ava replied. “Of course, Slughorn might be old as dirt.”

“Yeah, but Binns is dead. He’s older than dirt,” Matt reminded her. Ava gave a short laugh.

“Probably why he’s so boring,” she commented as they walked down the stairs and over to the Professor Slughorn’s classroom. They walked into room and sat at their table together.

Matt and Ava had never been close, despite being in the same Year and House. While they had gotten along, they had never truly been friends until this year through Alchemy class. They sat next to each other and helped each other study, as well as made fun of strange drawings of historically significant Alchemists in their textbooks and poked fun at Slughorn’s kiss-ass personality.

Most of the rest of the class was here by now. Ava didn’t know any of them very well. In the tiny class, Matt and Ava being the only Gryffindors. The majority were Ravenclaws, Slytherins closely behind them and Hufflepuffs in the minority with only one student.

They sat down in their seats. As Ava took out her book, she glanced around the room. Notable members of the class included Lucian Lohse, who sat at the table next to her. Ava did not particularly like Lucian–a result of playing Quidditch against him and listening to Zack’s hateful stories about him–but she would take Lucian anytime over the boy that sat directly behind him. Jason Reeves was a Ravenclaw student in her year and could only be described as weird. He didn’t say very much, but when he did talk, Ava often wondered if he was sane enough to go to Hogwarts. He seemed to be very interested in magical creatures and experiments to make them, ahem, more “interesting.” Ava also thought he liked to experiment with spells and had seen him practicing weird enchantments on different little animals and objects. While this by itself might not necessarily be bad, Jason also hung around people like Daman Jolicoeur, a seventh year that screamed bad news. While he might not have been as actively engaged in muggleborn-hatred, Ava knew he had no disagreements with purist attitudes and she couldn’t help but wonder if some of the spells he used were only practice to use on “other lesser beings.”

Professor Slughorn entered the room. “Hello, class!” he said. “Now, as we were talking about last week....”

Ava’s thoughts turned to Alchemy and the contributions of Paraclesus. She answered a few questions in the discussion, giving her thoughts on how Paraclesus wasn’t actually that great an alchemist, but he sure did manage to make a name for himself with it. When the lunch bell rang an hour later, Ava stood and started collecting her things, only half-listening to Slughorn’s goodbye and reminder to finish the essay over alchemical medicine due on Friday.

“Ava,” his voice said as she started to leave. She turned to the fat, older man. “Great work today,” Slughorn said. “I really do enjoy having you in this class. You’re quite bright in this subject, you know,” he complimented her.

“Thanks, Professor,” she said, though Ava couldn’t help but notice his use of “this subject.” She supposed that meant he didn’t find her as bright in Potions.

He nodded. “Well, I would like–wait, Cal, you come here a moment, this is for you, too,” he said to a blond Ravenclaw boy in her year that was about to leave the room. Cal turned and came back. “I’m hosting a dinner party this Saturday night in my office with a few other students and you are both invited. I do hope you both can make it.”

“Sure, Professor,” Cal said, though he really only seemed a little interested in the idea of going to the party. “Sounds fun.”

Ava nodded, but felt similar to how Cal seemed. “Sure,” she said.

Slughorn smiled. “Great! It starts at seven, on the dot. I can’t wait to see you there,” he said. “You too, Parker,” he commented to Matt, who was still in the room.

Matt grinned. “Wouldn’t miss it, Professor.”

Slughorn laughed. “I would hope not, my boy,” he said and walked back to his desk.

Ava walked out of the room with Matt, feeling mixed emotions. When she was younger, she had been bitter that she had not been invited to the infamous ‘Slug Club’, but as she had gotten older she had grown considerably more indifferent towards it. Still, she supposed it was nice that Slughorn thought she had some potential in the world...She would probably go on Saturday, but hopefully it wouldn’t be too horrible...

“The parties are only sometimes fun,” Matt commented to her, as if reading her thoughts. “You have to listen to a lot of Slughorn asking how people’s rich grandparents and Ministry Official uncles are doing. But the food’s good.”

“Well, that’s comforting,” she muttered.

Matt nodded. “Yeah, the food’s usually the best part. Sometimes he brings in famous people, too. Last time it was Celestina Warbeck–she’s awful, though, honestly.”

“Oh, she’s horrible,” Ava agreed. “Sounds like a banshee. Don’t get why people like her.”

“My mum loves her,” he muttered. “Grew up listening to her voice.”

“How horrible,” she said as they walked into the Great Hall and found seats at the Gryffindor table. “That must have been real scarring on you.”

“It was,” he insisted as he started filling his plate. “I can still hear her voice, sometimes, screaming into my ear. It’s like...it’s like a war, beckoning–”

“Shut up, Parker,” Ava said. Matt grinned. “That was horrible.”

“It was funny,” he defended himself. Then, his eyes were drawn to a point somewhere behind Ava’s head, and his smile turned into something considerably more affectionate.

“Hi, Matt,” a voice sounded from behind Ava. She turned in time to see Stella Lohse walk past, waving at Matt.

“Hi, Stella,” he said, waving back with a really stupid look on his face.

Ava raised an eyebrow and rolled her eyes as she grabbed an apple from the table. Before she had a chance to comment, though, Natalie walked over.

“Practice has been changed from tomorrow to tonight, same time,” she told the two of them.

Matt’s happy look immediately changed to one of annoyance. “Why?”

“Slytherin wanted to switch, so I said we could. Attendance is still mandatory and I want you playing at your best,” she told the both of them, though Ava thought it almost seemed like Natalie was talking more towards her on the last bit. “Understood?”

“Understood,” they both muttered. Natalie nodded and walked away.

Matt sighed and muttered something under his breath. “Be right back,” he said more audibly to Ava. Matt stood, making his way over to the Ravenclaw table where Stella was seated, where he sat down and proceeded to explain what Ava could only assume was a rescheduling of a planned date.

***

Quidditch practice went the way it normally did, despite the change in practice time. Natalie still continued to lead the team without mercy for breaks, Matt still kept his position as unofficial co-captain with treating practice like preparation for battle, and Ava could still tell that Zack was undoubtedly irritated with her.

Still, the two worked well together as the Gryffindor Beaters, though they were perhaps not quite as in-touch with each other as they had been in previous years. Ava had decided to talk to Zack right after practice ended, though; she was no longer going to let her strange and confusing feelings keep her from talking to her one of her best friends and boyfriend.

After practice ended and Natalie’s usual speech of The-Gryffindor-versus-Slytherin-Match-isn’t-even-a-month-and-a-half-away-and-this-game-is-huge-to-determine-who-wins-the-Quidditch-Cup-and-how-the-other-teams-and-the-entire-school-views-us-so-you-all-best-get-your-shit-together-and-keep-it-that-way-or-may-Matt-have-mercy-on-your-souls, the team hit the locker room and Ava changed back into her regular clothes, moving at a somewhat slower pace than usual. Slinging her bag over her shoulder, she walked over to Zack, the only other person left in the locker room, who was busy gathering his own things and did not notice her walk over.

“Hi,” she said after a moment. Oh my God, you couldn’t even think of something better than that to say? she thought, disgusted with herself. “Hi?” Seriously?

Zack looked up, surprise written all across his face. “Hi,” he said.

“You want to walk back together?” Ava had to force the words out; her mouth had gone dry and she had, for a moment, completely forgotten how to speak. “Since...you know...similar destination.”

“Sure,” he said, straightening up from packing up his bag and slinging the thing over his shoulder. He looked incredibly skeptical, as if their conversation was one of the last things he had expected of the night. Another pulse of guilt spread through Ava’s chest.

“Nice batting, earlier,” she said as she started towards the door, Zack closely behind her. “I mean, except for that point you almost swung yourself off your broom. Just because you’re thinking about hitting Lohse in the head doesn’t mean he’s actually there, remember,” she teased him, attempting to lighten the mood.

Zack gave a short laugh. “At least I wasn’t the one to almost hit themselves with their own bat,” he shot back. “Matt or Natalie might not have seen it, but your smacking yourself in the leg didn’t go unnoticed.”

“Wasn’t my fault the bludger turned last minute,” she muttered back, scowling at the feeling of her still-aching ankle, but she couldn’t help but feel a small rush of relief go through her. For a moment, the connection between them felt just like it had a month before: happy, relaxed, and in no way complicated.

“Sure,” he grinned, but his face soon fell. “So, uh,” he started, and Ava’s moment of relief quickly disappeared. “...You just going to avoid it, then?”

Ava looked to the ground, carefully studying the way her feet scuffed against the path leading to the castle. A pebble flew forward from her step. “No,” she said and looked back up at him. “I’m sorry,” she said sincerely. “It wasn’t fair of me to just...ignore you. I don’t really know what’s being going on,” she told him (and that was the truth, if she didn’t think about it too hard). “I’ve been questioning a lot about myself. But...I think I have it figured out.” Ava nodded, mostly to herself, and looked back down at the ground again for a moment before turning back to him. “And, anyway,” she shoved a strand of blonde hair out of face. “If you can forgive me for being a complete bitch, I really do still want to be with you.”

Is that true, though, Ava? the voice in the back of her head asked. Do you really want to be with him?

Fuck off.

Zack nodded slowly, his face clouded in thought. “Okay,” he said after what seemed like forever. “Yeah,” he nodded.

Ava released a breath she hadn’t realized she had been holding. She gave him a small smile and, hesitantly, took his hand. His hand seemed to stiffen for a moment, but it quickly relaxed into the familiar hold of her palm. Ava thought it might have been a good time to kiss him, if only briefly, but decided against it; that was a move too risky for tonight.

(And, if she were being honest with herself, Ava knew that she did not want to kiss Zack that night. Truthfully, she didn’t want to kiss him ever again.)

***

Ava and Zack had barely walked into the Common Room when Michael had grabbed them by their wrists and dragged them over to their usual sitting corner.

“Hey to you, too, Michael,” Zack said, looking up at him with a mix of annoyance and concern. Ava couldn’t help but feel a bit irritated as well–they had finally been getting back into the groove of an easier, relaxed conversation upon entering the Common Room.

Still, Michael’s demeanor of worry and distress pushed those thoughts from her mind. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“It’s about Kat and the others,” he said and immediately Ava’s attention was completely on him. “Kyra and I visited her and–wait, first,” Michael pulled out his wand and muttered “Muffliato”, a useful spell that had shown up at Hogwarts a few years back to ward off any eavesdroppers. “Okay, well, we were talking to Kat and she told us what happened, and it doesn’t really add up, because Kat didn’t actually want to kill herself and neither did Zia and Caden. It almost sounds like they were cursed. And of course the Ministry is involved–you guys saw some of those Ministry officials poking around the grounds after last weekend, right?–and then while we were talking about it Madam Pomfrey kicked us out and I think it’s because she overheard our conversation. And afterwards Kyra and I were talking, and we realized that all three of them are muggleborns.”

All three were silent for a moment, Michael looking at the older two students expectantly. Ava simply sat there, staring unseeingly at the fireplace as she processed what Michael had just told them.

Well, shit.

Ava managed to organize a few of her thoughts and glanced over to Zack, who was deep into his own thinking. “Okay,” she said, looking back to Michael. “We need to do something about this. We need to figure out who’s doing this.”

“How?” Michael asked. “Madam Pomfrey didn’t even let us finish theorizing with Kat about what might’ve happened to her.”

“School doesn’t have to know,” Ava said dismissively. “Plenty of things go on in Hogwarts without them knowing.”

“But the Ministry is here now,” Michael said, thinking. “What if they stay for longer? They definitely won’t like it if they find out we’re trying to figure this out. How are we going to figure it out, anyway?”

“Ministry doesn’t care about Hogwarts enough to stay longer,” Zack muttered. “Not right now, with a war going on. They might just pass it off as an accidental poisoning from Potions or even just coincidence. And...we’ll figure something out. It’ll be easier once they all get out of the infirmary.”

“Plus, it’s not like many wizards have a lot of logic to them,” Ava added. “We can probably find out what happened much quicker than them without using a bunch of magic.” This was very true, Ava reasoned, because all three of them had grown up at least partly with muggles. Zack was muggleborn and had lived with his muggle stepfather until the age of nine (a fact he did not like to talk about under any circumstances), Michael had been raised in a very muggle-centric environment, and Ava hadn’t known she was a witch until she received her Hogwarts letter. Of course, that only made this job even more dangerous to them, if Death Eaters really were behind this. Still, Ava didn’t think about that–she wasn’t going to stand back and let these people hurt other students and potentially someone she cared about.

Michael nodded in agreement. “We can do it. Plus, we’ll know the castle better than the Ministry, anyway. What about Dumbledore, though? McGonagall? They could easily find out.”

“We’ll worry about them if we have to,” Zack shrugged. “We’ll just be careful.”

“Okay,” Michael assented. “Kyra will want to help, too. I’m sure we can find somewhere covert to meet up with her if we need to.”

Another muggleborn, Ava realized, thinking of the Hufflepuff girl. Kind of ironic.

“So, once Kat gets out of the hospital, we’ll talk to her about this,” Zack said. “Caden and Zia, too, if we have to involve them–but it might be safer not to. Let’s not bring it up around Pomfrey, though, or she might get suspicious. Woman has ears like a damn bat,” he muttered.

“Let’s wait, too,” Ava murmured, thinking. “Just until we know the Ministry isn’t here anymore. We can’t do a lot of sneaking around with the possibility of them being in the halls.”

“Agreed,” Michael said. “In the meantime, we can look around the library, see if we can find some kind of curse or potion that they might have used.”

“You can do that, you spend enough time there anyway, nerd,” Zack said, grinning and giving him a light shove.

“Why do you think he’s the smart one of you two?” Ava asked him, smirking. “And don’t let that get to your head, Michael,” she chided at the younger boy’s growing smile.

The conversation turned significantly more lighthearted from there, and when Ava went up to bed that night, she couldn’t help but have a small smile on her face. Ava still worried about everything going on, of course–she couldn’t help think that something terrible was going to happen soon, whether it be inside or outside of Hogwarts. Yet after not talking to one of her closest friends for a month, and through that not seeing as much of friends like Michael either, and finally spending time with the both of them, she felt much better than she had before. Yes, there had been a definite awkwardness there at times, and that was her fault, Ava knew that and she was sorry for it. Still...even with the inevitable darkness that was going to come, little thought of it came to her mind as she crawled into bed that night, and Ava fell asleep that night quickly and without dreams.

Chapter 9
Wednesday, October 24, 1979

Annie had, at one point, truly enjoyed school. She had looked forward to her classes. She had loved spending time with her friends, laughing with them in all of their conversations. She had spent her free time walking around the castle ground, lying outside on the grass next to the fall leaves and taking in the fresh air.

Now, she could barely will herself to get out of bed in the morning.

Someone else in the dorm usually had to make sure she got up, lest she sleep in past second period–unless, of course, she had been unable to sleep at all. In those cases, she usually gave up trying to sleep at around three in the morning and instead opted to sit down in the Common Room in front of the fireplace, which at least gave her something to look at.

This morning it was Zia that had gotten her up. Annie had been so happy when Zia had been released from the infirmary and returned to the dormitory. Zia had insisted that she didn’t know what had gotten into her and assured all of them that she would never do something so stupid ever again, but Annie still worried about her. Zia had tried to hurt herself once and she could easily do it again.

There were some rumors going around the school about what had happened three weeks before. Some people thought that someone had forced Zia, Caden, and Kat to do what they had done, but Annie wasn’t sure. She tried not to think about it too much, though. It only made her feel sadder and even more worried.

If it was something dark, though, at least that meant they hadn’t wanted to hurt themselves. Annie had been very relieved that not only Zia and Caden turned out okay, but also Kat. Kat was another friend of hers and Annie did not want to think about what might have happened if Kat’s jump off the Bell Tower had been successful.

As Annie (very slowly) dressed that morning, she tried to push the thoughts of hurt friends from her head. She had long ago been given her fair share of worrying over the people she cared about and did not want to have to keep worrying. (Of course, that did not mean her wish was granted.)

Standing at the bathroom sink, Annie finished combing through her hair and looked into the mirror. She looked awful. Dark bags hung under her eyes and her skin appeared paler than it ever had been. Her face seemed a little thinner, as if she weren’t already skinny enough. Her robes were wrinkled, an unusual occurrence for Annie. She attempted to smooth the fabric out with her hand, but had little luck. Pulling out her wand, she pointed it at her robes, but as she opened her mouth to say the proper incantation to get rid of the wrinkles, Annie realized she could not remember the spell.

Come on, she thought, eyebrows furrowing as she tried to recall the spell. Mum’s used it plenty of times, you’ve heard her, what is it?

But despite her efforts, Annie could not remember the charm. Annie’s arm fell limp at her side in defeat and she looked back up at the mirror. Tears started to form in her eyes, and before she had a chance to stop them, a few began to fall.

“Stop that,” she murmured to herself, wiping them away with her fingers. Thank God she was the only one left in the bathroom–Annie wanted no one to see her crying. She turned the faucet on, splashed her face with cold water a few times, and then towel-patted her skin dry. The tears had stopped, but her eyes still ached. It was okay, though. By the time she reached the Great Hall, the slight redness would be gone and there wouldn’t be many people still eating breakfast, anyway.

Annie grabbed her bag and headed down to the Great Hall, dreading the day to come. The only thoughts that managed to lift her spirits up were that she had Divination later and that she had absolutely no classes with the Slytherins today.

Just as she walked into Entrance Hall, the bell rang, signalling the end of breakfast. Annie sighed and turned away from the Great Hall, staring down at her floor as she walked up to History of Magic. She had taken even longer than usual this morning, leaving no time to eat. It was fine, she’d had a decent sized dinner last night, and there was only a small ache in her stomach. She would survive until lunch, and if not, maybe Emily had something in her classroom she could have. Truthfully, she would rather eat lunch there than in the Great Hall...

“Annie?” Annie looked up at the voice as she turned a corner. Zack Johnson had been walking in the opposite direction on the other side of the hallway, but he had stopped and turned around, concern showing on his face. “What’s wrong?”

She managed to smile at him. “Nothing, just tired, that’s all,” she said. Annie gave a small laugh, but even she had to admit it sounded pathetic. “Slept in late. I know that’s silly–you’d think I’d be used to mornings by now.”

Zack looked unconvinced. “Annie–”

“I’ve got to go,” she interrupted him. “I’ll see you later, Zack,” Annie gave him a small wave as she said it, but had already started to turn back around and walk quickly to Professor Binn’s classroom. Annie felt bad for just leaving him, but she didn’t want to talk to him about this. She couldn’t, really, not without starting to cry again. It wasn’t for him to concern over, anyway. There was no reason for him to.

***

Annie sat quietly throughout her next three classes, waiting impatiently for fourth period. She wanted–no, needed to go to Divination. She needed to talk to Emily. Emily seemed to be the only person she could bring herself to talk to now. Annie didn’t want to bother any of her friends with her problems. Besides, it wasn’t like she could tell them, anyway. Emily was the only one who knew about her problem.

As soon as her third period ended, Annie rushed to the North Tower for Divination. Climbing quickly up the tall staircase, Annie was one of the first people in the room. She quickly set her things down and looked around the room, but Emily–Professor Minou, as she addressed her in class–was nowhere to be seen.

Annie’s heart fell a little, but she supposed it didn’t matter that Emily was not in the room right now. It wasn’t as if she could talk to her just before class anyway. Annie sat down at her table with a small sigh and waited as the rest of the class filled in.

A few minutes later, Rachel took her seat across from Annie and smiled at her. “Hi, Annie,” she said. “Have you been here a while? Usually we get here around the same time.”

Annie shook her head. “Just a few minutes,”

Rachel nodded. “Well, aren’t you just quick today. Or maybe I’m slow. Probably the latter,” she admitted. “I ate a little too much at breakfast today. Did you get breakfast? I didn’t see you.”

“No,” Annie murmured. “I slept in late again.”

“You need a better alarm,” Rachel teased, smiling at her, but Annie noticed the worry in her eyes. “Stella mentioned something about you sleeping in late a lot. Are you sleeping well?”

“Sort of,” she said, shrugging a little. “Just...you know, worried about school and all.” That wasn’t a lie. With the upcoming OWLs and her new regular inability to focus in class, school felt like a heavy weight crushing her into the ground.

Rachel nodded. “I’m sure Madam Pomfrey has something you could take for better sleep. And I’ll help you study, if you want. We do take the same classes, afterall.”

“Sure,” Annie said, giving a small smile. “That would be great.”

Rachel started to say something else–something about classes and Christmas break–but Annie’s attention had been taken by the entrance of Arcanna Phan. Arcanna had walked into the classroom and sat down at her table, pushing back her beautiful dark hair behind her ears and opening up her textbook, glancing over the pages.

Immediately Annie’s thoughts turned to Malcolm. Annie had noticed Malcolm and Arcanna spending a lot of time together lately. It wasn’t that she had been trying to watch Malcolm–she was trying to avoid him as much as possible, actually–but she saw him often in the corridors and at meals as well as during Herbology with the Slytherins. Malcolm spent a lot of time with Arcanna and the two seemed to have so much fun together. Annie wondered if the two were dating, or if they at least liked each other. Annie held nothing against Malcolm or Arcanna–neither of them had ever done anything wrong to her–but the thought of them together only made her feel even sadder than she usually felt. Annie knew that, had she not broken up with Malcolm, they would still be together. Yet Annie couldn’t even bring herself to feel bitter over the break up without guilt. Breaking up with him had been the only good choice. She’d had to break up with him, for his sake.

“Annie?” Rachel’s voice interrupted her thoughts. Annie looked back over to her. “Are you alright?” she asked, concerned.

Annie opened her mouth to speak, about to insist that yes, she was, but could not quite get the words out. She said nothing for a moment, just looking at Rachel. She felt her eyes begin to burn with threatening tears. No, she thought desperately, pleading with herself not to cry. ''Please. Not here.''

Rachel looked like she was about to say something, but at that moment, Professor Minou walked in, and Annie felt a rush of relief go through her. Professor Minou, or Emily as Annie knew her, was an older woman with greying hair and a few wrinkles on her face. Emily was an old friend of Annie’s family and she had known her since she was a little girl. Emily was basically blood to her and she trusted her more than anyone else.

“Good morning, class,” she said, smiling. “Today we will–”

The door opened and Kyra Musika stumbled in. “Sorry Professor Minou,” she gasped as she hurried to her seat near Annie’s own table, face flushed red and obviously out of breath. “I was...in the library. Lost track of time.”

There were several hushed laughs from around the classroom. Annie heard someone mutter a joke–something about Kyra and Michael–and there was even more laughter. Emily held up her palm before the class and the noise died down. She turned to Kyra, eyebrow raised. “And I do assume you were working on Divination in the library, yes?”

“Something like that,” Kyra muttered.

“Well, since you were getting a head start on class, you’ll be more prepared for the extra five inches of parchment you’ll need to write on your essay over the relationship between Venus and Pluto. Correct?”

Kyra scowled. “Yes,” she muttered, glaring at the student across from her that dared to laugh again.

“Good. Now,” Emily turned back to the rest of the class. “As I was saying, we will be continuing our work with astromancy....”

Annie worked diligently on the assignment Emily gave them, mainly to push off anything Rachel tried to say to her. Annie felt a pulse of guilt at ignoring her friend, but she refused to speak to her about what had just happened between them now or at any other time.

When the bell rang to signal the end of class and the start of lunch hour, Annie did not stand with the rest of her classmates. “Go on,” she told Rachel. “I want to talk to Professor Minou.”

Rachel gave a little frown. “Okay,” she nodded. “I’ll talk to you later,” she said, but Annie thought it sounded more like Rachel was stating a fact rather than a simple goodbye.

Annie nodded, smiling but feeling the exact opposite on the inside. “Okay,” she said, giving her a small wave as Rachel left the classroom.

Annie waited until every other student had left the room before walking up to Emily’s desk, where her professor sat checking papers. She looked up upon noticing Annie’s presence and smiled. “Hello, Annie, how are you?”

Annie started to speak, but quickly stopped, unable to say anything and barely able to breathe. Tears gathered in her eyes again and this time, she left them fall. She lifted her hands to her face, covering her mouth and looking down at the ground as she choked back a sob.

“Oh, Annie,” she heard Emily say, and a moment later she felt the older woman’s arms embrace her. Annie stood there, letting herself cry properly for the first time in what felt like forever. It felt nice to be able to show her misery to someone, something she had not done in what seemed to be a very long time, even with Emily. Annie had tried to keep her feelings inside–she hadn’t wanted to burden Emily with the same problems over and over–but she couldn’t take it anymore. She had needed to cry to someone.

Annie pulled herself away, staring down at the floor. How long had she been crying? Annie wasn’t sure. It didn’t matter, though, not really. Annie felt better–compared to how she normally felt, at least.

“What’s wrong, Annie?” Emily asked, and Annie looked up at her. “Is this about Malcolm?”

Annie frowned. “Yes. Sort of,” she murmured. “It is. It just...it isn’t just him, anymore. It’s everything.” Annie began to tear up again. “I can’t handle anything, anymore.”

“Fifth year is hard,” her confidant told her sympathetically. “It’ll get better though, Annie, it will. Are you having problems with your friends?”

Annie shook her head. “No, they’re all fine, really. It’s just...I can’t tell them about Malcolm and it’s...it’s hard,” she choked out.

Emily nodded sadly. “I’m sorry, dear. It’s for the best, though, you know that. Who knows what could happen if they all knew?”

Annie nodded. “I don’t want them to get hurt,” she agreed. “That’s most important. I’ll gladly live like this for them. But...I miss him. And you know they must all think I’m crazy. They think I broke up with him for no reason, and I’m the one who’s still upset. He’s fine.”

“And you know he wouldn’t be fine if you hadn’t,” Emily reminded her. “Would you rather him get hurt?”

“No!” Annie cried, looking up at her with wide eyes. “Of course not. I want him to be safe...and now he will be, right?”

Emily nodded. “Of course,” she confirmed. “What I foresaw would have only occurred if you two had continued your relationship. Nothing will happen to him, now. And you will move on, Annie, I know you will. And you’ll be done with fifth year and the OWLs before you know it.”

Annie nodded at her mentor’s words of comfort, but she did not quite believe them. She gave Emily a small smile. “Thank you, Emily,” she said and hugged her.

“Of course, dear,” said Emily, kissing the top of her head. “Now, go on to lunch and be with your friends.”

Annie stepped away from her and put her fingers up to her eyes, frowning. “My face is still red, though,” she muttered. “They’ll notice.”

“Here,” Emily pulled out her wand, pointed it at her face, and said a spell Annie had never heard before but tried very hard to remember. Annie felt the burning in her eyes go away and a pleasant coolness wash over her face. “Now you look fine. Feel better?”

“Yes. Thank you,” she smiled gratefully.

“Good,” Emily nodded. “Now, go on. And don’t forget your assignment for tomorrow,” she reminded her as she began to step away.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Annie gave a small laugh as she collected her things. “Bye, Emily,” she said, waving at her.

“Goodbye, dear,” Emily said, waving back and returning to her desk.

***

After leaving the North Tower, Annie decided it might be a better idea to grab lunch from the kitchens instead of the Great Hall; while she felt better, she still did not feel like talking to her friends, particularly Rachel, who she knew wanted to speak to her. Thankfully she had no classes with her and figured she would be able to avoid her for at least the rest of the day.

Yet, Annie had no such luck. After her classes were over, Annie headed to the kitchens again for dinner and then to the library to find a book for an assignment. As she searched through the maze of book shelves, Annie managed to walk herself right into Rachel’s sight.

“Annie!” Rachel smiled and walked over to her. Annie’s chest tightened and she scolded herself for being so careless, but smiled back. “I didn’t see you at lunch or dinner. Where were you?”

“Oh,” Annie thought quickly, debating what would be best to say. “I was there, I just ate quickly, that’s all. You must not have seen me.”

“Right,” Rachel said, but she looked skeptical. “Are you here for History of Magic? I can’t find that book he mentioned over the battles during the Giant Wars anywhere.”

Annie shook her head. “No, Charms. I need to work on the essay he assigned.”

“Oh, right,” her eyes widened. “I forgot about that. Thank God it isn’t due ‘till next week...Well, let’s help each other find these books.”

Annie nodded, though she had no desire to do so. “Okay,” she agreed.

The two started walking down the aisles of books. “So,” Rachel started. “Are you doing alright? You looked upset earlier. What was wrong?”

Annie sighed a little, looking away from her and studying the shelves intently. “I’m fine. I just...I slept in late, you know, and I hadn’t had breakfast, and it was a bad morning, that’s all.”

Rachel nodded. “I get it.” She was silent for a moment. “Have you been feeling well, though? Not just right now and earlier today, but since school started. You’ve...you’ve seemed really down,” she finished, as though unsure of what exactly to say.

“Yeah,” Annie said, her voice sounding a bit higher than it usually did. “Just a little stressed with school, that’s all.”

“Yeah, this year’s awful, definitely,” Rachel agreed. “But...well, we can all help each other study, you know? So it’ll be okay. And, you know, if you ever need anyone to talk to, I’m here for you. We all are,” she said, giving her a smile.

Annie returned a small smile back and nodded. “And thank you for that. I just hope I’ll be a good study partner for you.”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “Of course you will be, you’re Annie. You actually understand school most of the time, unlike the rest of us.” She grinned, looking at something just behind Annie. Rachel reached over and plucked out a book from the shelves. “Is this the one you were looking for?”

Annie nodded gratefully, taking it from her. “Yes, thank you. I couldn’t find it at all.”

“Well, since I found your book, you can find mine,” Rachel said, linking arms with her. “Come on, lead the way, Anitho.”

As the two searched through the shelves, Annie couldn’t help but feel relieved. That had gone much better than she had expected–she was grateful Rachel hadn’t tried to question her too much. And this, looking through the library her, was surprisingly fun.

“Here,” Annie said after about ten minutes of looking. She took one of the many books. “Is this it?”

“Yes, thank God,” Rachel laughed, taking it from her and quickly flipping through it. “Okay, let’s go, I’m starting to feel like we’re stuck in a maze.”

“Agreed,” Annie smiled and they started walking back. Just as they were about to escape the maze of shelves, though, they quite literally ran into Michael Johnson, whose face was buried in a large, ancient looking book.

Michael looked up, stepping back. “Sorry,” he apologized.

“Watch where you’re going, Johnson,” Rachel teased. “What’s so interesting in that book you must run the high risk of running into people and things?”

“Nothing,” he said a little bit too quickly, closing the book.

Annie raised an eyebrow at him. “Really? That doesn’t sound like nothing,” she said. Annie had a gift for knowing when someone was being untruthful and she knew that Michael was hiding something.

“It’s not important, really,” Michael insisted. “Sorry for bumping into you, again.” He quickly walked around the two girls and had turned into another aisle before either of them had a chance to say anything.

“That was a little weird,” Rachel whispered. “What do you think he’s reading?”

“I don’t know,” Annie murmured. “I don’t think it’s anything bad, but...who knows?”

Rachel shrugged. “Whatever, Michael wouldn’t do something dangerous. I hope. Come on, let’s go.”

The two checked out their books and left the library together, eventually parting ways to go to their own Houses as curfew was drawing near. When Annie got to the Ravenclaw Tower, she immediately went up to her dormitory, preferring the quiet there to work on her Charms essay. The dorm was empty, thankfully, and Annie was able to work in peace for nearly an hour before she decided to get ready for bed. She went and brushed her teeth, washed her face, and combed through her hair in the girls’ bathroom. Annie felt almost relaxed, for once, and decided to try to sleep when she got back to her dorm, hoping for a peaceful night’s rest. Upon returning to the dormitory, though, she was greeted with several of her roommates sitting near other, talking quickly to each other about something that seemed rather alarming, judging by the looks on their faces and tone in their voice.

Annie frowned, worry beginning to grow in her chest. “What happened?”

Stella looked up at her, eyebrows creased. “It’s that Gryffindor boy, Michael Johnson,” she said, and immediately Annie’s breathing stopped, eyes widening. “He’s been attacked.”

Chapter 10
Wednesday, October 24, 1979

When the group of little third years started gossiping a few meters behind him, Zack had been to block them out until he heard the words, “Michael Johnson was attacked.”

Zack’s breathing stopped. ''Michael? What happened?''

“What happened?” another voice gasped from behind him. “How do you know?”

“Someone told me in the halls, apparently he’s in the infirmary, I didn’t actually see him but–”

“What happened to him?” This voice, considerably more demanding than the one from before, came from in front of him. Ava’s question pulled him from his initial shock and he looked up at her. She had stood from her chair across from him and her tone had hushed all of the students around them in the common room.

The third year looked startled at her entrance into their conversation. “I-I don’t know, I just–”

“Well, you’re talking about it, so you must know something,” she snapped, walking over to group. Zack might have laughed at how terrifying Ava came off to the tiny students under different circumstances. “What do you know? Why’s he in the infirmary?”

“I–I guess someone or something attacked him, I don’t know what, but-but apparently he’s not in good shape but-but that’s just what I heard, I don’t–”

Ava had turned away from the younger student and back to Zack. “Come on, let’s go,” she said to him. Zack nodded and stood, his thoughts racing at lightspeed.

Ava went quickly towards the portrait hole, Zack following, but before they had a chance to leave, Natalie Cole stepped in front of them.

“Move,” Ava snapped.

“It’s after curfew,” Natalie reminded her, crossing her arms. “You’re going to get in trouble if you just leave.”

“Yes, I care so bloody much about Filch and his curfew. Move,” she snarled, pushing the older girl out of the way, but Natalie quickly stepped in front of her again. “Do you want me to hex you, Cole?”

“I’m going to take you,” Natalie said irritably, rolling her eyes. “I will escort you to the infirmary. Prefect, remember?”

Ava looked at her skeptically. “Why would you want to?” she asked. Zack couldn’t help but wonder the same thing. Natalie was an okay friend, sure, but Ava and Zack’s interaction with her was mainly through Quidditch. Zack doubted she wanted to see Michael in person for herself, either–as far as he knew, the two barely knew each other.

“Because I’m a nice person and I want to help you. Now, would you rather risk being put in detention and not being able to see Michael at all or go with me and actually get a chance at seeing him?”

“Come on,” Zack muttered to Ava, ending his silence. “We’ll just follow her.”

“Fine,” she said, scowling. Natalie nodded and lead the way out of the Common Room and towards the infirmary.

They walked in silence for a minute until Ava finally spoke up. “Do you know what happened?”

Natalie shook her head. “Heard about it the same way you did. I don’t know, I’m sorry.”

Ava nodded and the silence continued for a moment.

“I’m gonna kill ‘em,” Zack muttered. “Whoever attacked him. Fuck. What if they have to take him to Mungo’s?”

“Pomfrey’s good,” said Ava, but that was all she said. Zack just nodded a little.

The silence continued until they reached the infirmary. The three walked in and were quickly met by Madam Pomfrey, who was stirring up some sort of potion. The matron looked up at them for a moment, sighed, and looked back down at the mixture. “I figured you’d be down here. It is past curfew, you know,” she reminded them, shaking her head. “Go back to your dorm, he’s asleep right now. You can see him in the morning.”

“We’re not leaving,” Ava insisted.

Zack nodded. “We’ll sleep here. We’ll wait for him to wake up.”

Madam Pomfrey looked over the three for a moment before sighing and shaking her head. “If you disturb him in any way you will leave and will not be able to see him until he is released,” she warned.

“Done,” Zack agreed immediately.

“You can come back in a moment,” she said, pouring the potion she had been stirring into a cup and bringing it back to a curtained-off section where Michael must have been. After a minute she returned. “Come on,” she said, nodding to them and taking them back to Michael.

Michael looked awful. His skin was pale and his lips seemed nearly blue. His dark hair lay in a sweaty mess across his forehead. Under the blankets, Zack could see bandages wrapped around his torso.

Anger coursed through Zack. Who had done this? Why was he covered in bandages? What had happened? Still, though, he couldn’t help but feel relieved. Michael wasn’t at Mungo’s and Pomfrey was letting them stay here; he would be okay.

“What happened to him?” Natalie asked, concern in her voice as she looked up at Pomfrey.

“I can’t tell you much and I don’t know much, anyway. All I can tell you is that he was found in a corridor on the third floor.” She sighed. “It looks like it may be a curse that’s shown up a few times before in the school. He’ll be alright, I assure you, he just needs his rest. Now, be quiet and don’t disturb him.”

Pomfrey walked away and Zack sat down in the chair closest to Michael. Ava and Natalie followed suit, Ava sitting closest to Zack.

“They’re dead,” he muttered quietly so that Pomfrey wouldn’t hear. “Whoever did this.”

Ava nodded and lowered her voice to a very soft whisper. “Do you think...?”

“Maybe.”

“He was in the library, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah. Researching.”

“I’m right here,” Natalie interrupted them.

Ava scowled at her. “This isn’t any of your business,” she said irritably. “Go back to the common room.”

“It is, actually,” Natalie insisted. She leaned closer to them and lowered her voice. “You’ve been looking into what happened a few weeks ago, haven’t you? Don’t deny it, I know you have been, you’re not as sneaky as you might think.”

Both of them were silent. Zack thought for a moment. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Anything else you wanna know?”

“Yeah. I want us to help each other. I’ve been looking around, too–there is something bad going on in Hogwarts and I wouldn’t be surprised if whatever happened to Michael is related.”

“How do we know you won’t just get in the way?” Ava asked cooly.

“Because we have the same goal, and if anything, you are going to get in my way. Even though I’m not Head Girl and I’m not allowed to know certain things,” Natalie’s tone screamed frustration. “I have better insight on what’s going on than you do. I can get information more easily, especially out of the staff. However, I’m only one person. With you two and Michael and–is Kyra Musika involved too?–we can get this figured out much faster before someone else gets hurt.”

Zack nodded after a moment. “Yeah,” he said. “Okay. Ava?”

Ava nodded, but looked rather irritated. “Fine,” she said. “We’ll help each other.”

Natalie nodded. “Okay. Good,” she said. “Let’s not discuss what we know here, though. I don’t want Madam Pomfrey to overhear something.”

“Agreed,” said Zack.

With that, all three grew silent. Zack did not know if Natalie or Ava slept that night, but he didn’t. Zack sat wide awake in his chair, thinking and worrying. What if Michael wasn’t going to be okay? Yes, he was being watched by Madam Pomfrey, a great healer, and he wasn’t at Saint Mungo’s, which meant it wasn’t that serious, but still, what if? He cared for and loved Michael like a brother and he couldn’t help but feel worried. He was infuriated, too–whoever did this was going to pay.

Why had they done it? Michael wasn’t the type to pick a fight with someone. He had been in the library researching for their investigation, as he had been so much in the past few weeks. Was that why someone had attacked him? Had Michael been about to discover what happened to Kat and the others and the wrong person had noticed? Or was Michael just the next attack after Kat–a maybe-random victim in what might be a very grand, violent scheme?

His thoughts were not restricted to Michael–he thought of Ava, too. This was a normal occurrence for Zack, and why wouldn’t it be? Ava had ignored him for an entire month and out of nowhere had decided she wanted their relationship to be like normal again...she had apologized, of course, and Zack had forgiven her, he loved her, afterall. Their relationship had mostly returned to the way it had been before. It was familiar and Zack was comfortable with it. Still, he couldn’t help but notice certain things about the way she acted. Whenever he kissed her, it always seemed like she was...what was it, reluctant? Disinterested? He couldn’t tell. Maybe he was just paranoid; it would make sense, after the weeks of her avoiding him.

Zack’s mind drifted through these things and more throughout the night as he waited for Michael to wake up. It wasn’t until hours later, light only just beginning to show through the window, that he began to stir. Zack immediately sat up straighter, his attention going only to his friend. “Michael?” he whispered.

Michael muttered something that Zack couldn’t quite understand, but he still seemed rather unconscious. Yet before Zack could do or say anything, Madam Pomfrey walked up.

“He should be waking up right about now,” she said, setting down a tray with several vials of potions on it. “You and your friends will need to wait over by the door–and no buts, Mr. Johnson,” she warned at Zack, who had been just about to protest. “It’ll only take a few minutes.”

“Is he waking up?” Natalie murmured from her chair. Zack looked over to see both her and Ava beginning to move.

“Yeah,” he muttered, standing. “C’mon, we’ve gotta go over there,” he said, figuring it would just be easier and faster to follow Pomfrey’s orders. Aside from that, Zack felt too tired to bother arguing with the woman.

The two girls stood, stretching as they followed Zack over to the small sitting area by the door. Zack told them that Michael had been just beginning to wake, but the three were otherwise silent as they waited for Pomfrey to call them back again. The minutes seemed like hours, but soon, the matron came for them and brought them back to Michael.

Michael, though still appearing rather unwell, looked much better than he had the night before. He was awake now and eating a small bowl of porridge. He looked up upon their entrance and gave them a small, tired, but genuine smile. “Hi,” he said.

“Hey,” Zack said, crossing over to him to hug him, Ava quickly following after him once he sat down. Natalie simply smiled at Michael and sat back in her chair.

“Madam Pomfrey said you guys were here all night. Is that true?” Michael asked as though he couldn’t quite believe it.

“Well, yeah,” Zack said. “Of course we did.”

“Oh,” Michael looked down at his food. “Thanks.”

“How’re you feeling?” Ava asked. “What happened?”

“Okay. Madam Pomfrey gave me some potions, so this doesn’t hurt,” he gestured to his chest, where the bandages wrapped around him were visible. “And...I don’t remember,” he admitted.

“Really?” asked Natalie in surprise. “Did you hurt your head?”

Michael shook his head. “No, don’t think so. I remember bits of being in the infirmary, but...what actually happened, I have no idea.” Michael lowered his voice. “I think they might think I was obliviated. It makes sense, right? They cursed me somehow–pretty sure I wasn’t just slashed with a knife.”

“Those are cuts?” Zack demanded, anger rising inside of him.

“Yeah, it’s like someone took a sword and started swinging at my chest...Madam Pomfrey said they might scar a little, but it won’t be much. It’s, uh, kind of cool, right? Makes me look tough,” he added lamely at the end, as if to try to calm the fury he sensed in Zack, Ava, and even Natalie.

“Pomfrey’s right, I remember someone being cursed like that a couple years ago,” Natalie muttered.

“Could it have been one of the older students, then, Michael? Do you remember any details? What about before it happened?”

Michael shook his head. “No, I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I was, uh, in the library studying–”

“Natalie knows, she’s on our team now,” Zack told him.

Michael blinked. “Oh. Cool! Okay, well I was researching, actually, but I don’t think I found anything useful, but then again I don’t really remember...I think I ran into Rachel and Annie, they were wondering what I was doing, though...and uh, curfew was soon, so I was trying to wrap up what I was doing before Madam Pince yelled at me...and I don’t remember anything else.”

“Do you think Rachel or Annie knows anything?” Natalie wondered.

“Maybe,” Michael shrugged. “I don’t think so, I think they might have left, but I guess–”

Very rapid knocking on the infirmary doors interrupted him. Moments later, Zack heard footsteps run across the room and there appeared Kyra, red faced and frantic looking. Immediately she flew to Michael and hugged him. “Oh my God, what happened?” she cried. “I wake up and get ready and walk down to my common room to hear you were attacked? What happened? Are you okay? Who did this?”

“I’m fine,” Michael managed to get out, looking rather uncomfortable. “Could you, um, let go a little?”

“Sorry!” Kyra quickly pulled back. “Did I hurt you? I’m sorry. Oh my God, your chest is all bandaged, what the hell happened?” It was just then that Kyra seemed to notice the other three sitting there. “When the hell did you three get here?” she demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

Zack immediately felt guilty–admittedly, he had completely forgotten about Kyra, being too focused on getting to Michael when he had heard he was in the infirmary. Fortunately they were saved from admitting this and facing Kyra’s wrath by Madam Pomfrey, who quickly appeared.

“Heavens, what are you doing?” she asked Kyra, surprise and annoyance across her face. “You can’t just run in here–and you’ve messed up his bandages! You’ll all need to step back out again,” the matron told them.

“But–” Michael started to protest.

“No buts,” she snapped. “The rest of you, out. You all might as well go get breakfast, class is starting soon. You can come back later.”

“But–” Kyra began to protest this time, anger evident in her voice.

“No, he is still recovering,” Pomfrey held strong, but her face softened. “You may visit again later,” she reiterated. “He will be okay.”

Kyra scowled, turned around, and stomped off. Zack sighed, not able to help feeling a little annoyed with Kyra for getting them kicked out, and stood up with the others. “We’ll be back later, Michael,” he assured him. Natalie and Ava said their goodbyes and the three of them walked out of the infirmary and into the corridor, where Kyra waited for them.

“What happened?” she demanded as soon as she saw them.

“Someone attacked Michael last night using some kind of cutting curse,” Natalie told her. “He doesn’t remember it and he may have been obliviated. And he has no idea who did it, so there’s no use running off and interrogating people,” she warned Kyra, who looked just about ready to do so.

“Who would hurt Michael?” she muttered angrily. “It’s not like he goes around antagonizing people and–” her eyes widened. “Where was he?”

“They found him near the library,” Ava said. “He was researching again. Natalie knows, don’t worry, she’s on our team now.” She glanced at the infirmary doors. “Come on, let’s start walking towards the Great Hall so that Pomfrey doesn’t hear us.”

The four started walking in that direction. “Why?” Kyra asked Natalie, looking at her skeptically. “I thought we decided to involve as few people as possible.”

“Maybe you should be a little more careful, then,” Natalie said irritably. “I’ve seen Michael doing his research in the library–the books he looks at aren’t exactly inconspicuous–and I’ve noticed you all snooping around, talking like you’ve got some big secret. Honestly, it wasn’t that hard to figure out.”

“Does anyone else know?” Zack asked, immediately worrying over anyone else trying to get involved or even stop them.

“Not that I know of,” Natalie shrugged. “I’m just observant. It’s possible, though.”

“Well, considering most wizards aren’t usually that observant, you’re probably the only one,” Ava muttered.

“Except for whoever attacked Michael,” Zack pointed out.

Natalie shook her head. “We don’t know for sure that Michael’s attack had anything to do with someone realizing what he was doing or if it even had to do with this investigation at all. It may have just been some prick looking for someone to torment.”

“Maybe,” he muttered.

“Well, what do you know, then, Natalie?” Kyra asked.

The older girl sighed. “Not a lot,” she admitted. “There is definitely something fishy going on–what those three students did a few weeks ago was not just bizarre coincidence of their own free will. The Ministry was getting involved, but they haven’t been around as much in the last week, and honestly, I don’t think they’re going to be doing much since there’s so much going on with the war. I don’t know everything, of course. I’m just a prefect,” she muttered angrily. “The Head Boy and Girl know more than the rest of us, but even then, I don’t know how much they know. Anyway, the most they’ve told the prefects is to keep a close eye on anything suspicious looking and to especially look out for the muggleborn students–Zia, Caden, and Kat are all muggleborns, you figured that out, right?”

“Michael isn’t muggleborn, though,” Kyra muttered.

“He may as well be,” Zack said. “His mom basically turned muggle after meeting his dad. Whoever did this might have known that.”

“Again, that doesn’t mean this attack had anything to do with that,” Natalie reminded her. “We can’t assume that. We need more evidence, first. Right now, Michael’s attack and the attacks on those muggleborns need to be viewed as two separate, unrelated events. Now, what do you all know about the muggleborn attacks?”

“We think that they were cursed with something,” Ava told her. “That’s one of the things Michael’s been researching; he’s trying to figure out what they might have used. We think the curse just made them intensely miserable and desiring death for about twenty-four hours; before and after, none of them felt anything like that. It may be some sort of potion, too, but that would be more difficult to achieve. We also think it was done by some of Voldemort’s followers.” Kyra flinched and Natalie scowled at the name. “Whether they’re actual Death Eaters or just wannabes, we don’t know. We haven’t been able to do too much looking around the castle because of the Ministry, but since their presence has been diminishing lately, that shouldn’t be a problem soon, especially now that we have you as a hallway pass.”

Natalie gave a short laugh.“You’re welcome,” she said sardonically as the entered the Great Hall, which was nearly empty.

“Let’s talk about this later,” Zack muttered.

“Lunch,” Kyra suggested. “I want to go see Michael then.”

Natalie nodded. “Lunch hour, in the infirmary,” she agreed. “We’ll need to figure out another meetup place soon, though. Be looking around for somewhere.”

***

Zack forced himself to stay awake through his next three classes, barely able to pay attention. Looking back on that morning later, he remembered very little of what happened due to his exhaustion, even in Professor Pyrite’s (who had turned out to be a surprisingly good teacher) discussion on the Imperius Curse. Fourth period, thank Merlin, was free, and he took the opportunity to sleep.

He did, however, remember very clearly his walk up to Gryffindor Tower. Forcing himself up the many staircases leading to his Common Room and staring straight ahead despite not totally seeing what was there, he heard a voice call his name from behind.

Zack turned to see Annie Anitho on the other side of the staircase a few steps behind him, looking up at him. “Hi, Annie,” he said, blinking himself out of his haze.

“Is Michael okay?” She asked, concerned. “I heard he was hurt.”

“Oh,” he nodded. “Yeah. He’s okay–some git cursed him.”

Her eyes widened. “That’s awful. Why would anyone do that?”

“I don’t know,” he muttered, scowling, but just then he remembered that Michael mentioned seeing Annie. “Uh–I was talking to him this morning, and he mentioned he saw you last night. Did you notice anyone that might have done it?”

She frowned and shook her head. “No, I’m sorry,” she said. “I think we left the library before he did–I was with Rachel, she might know something. He was acting a little strange, though...Had some big old book with him, wouldn’t let us see what it was,” she explained. “I don’t know if that helps, but it might be something.”

He nodded. “Okay. Thanks, Annie.” He began to turn away to continue to his destination, but quickly stopped, remembering something. “Uh, hey, Annie,” he said, looking back at her. “Are you okay? You seemed upset yesterday.”

“Oh,” she looked very surprised, but quickly put a small smile on her face. “Yes, I’m fine, I was just tired, that’s all.”

When Annie had told him she was tired yesterday, he had not believed her, and today he felt exactly the same. “Annie–”

“I’m fine,” she said quickly. “Speaking of which, you look exhausted. Go take a nap,” she smiled. “See you, Zack.” Annie gave him a small wave and started down the stairs again, going much faster than how Zack thought she normally walked.

He sighed. Zack did not know Annie too well, but he liked her and was worried about her. Still, he could barely focus on the steps ahead of him, and Annie was nearly out of sight now. He would try to talk to her later, or perhaps say something to Rachel about it. Rachel and Annie were friends, and he needed to talk to her, anyway. Maybe she knew something about what had happened to Michael...

Zack finished his trek up to portrait hole (password: Mandrake Root), trudged over to his usual couch in the Common Room, and promptly crashed there, peacefully dead to the world for the next hour until lunch began.

The Hogsmeade Trip
Saturday, October 27, 1979

Ava Bankowski

The morning of the Hogsmeade trip, Ava woke up late.

This was not entirely crushing to her–she’d been to Hogsmeade many times before, both with the school and during the holidays to visit Zack.

Still, waking up late did mean nearly missing breakfast. When she had finally gotten ready and gotten down to the Great Hall, most of the students were gone and with them, the food. Ava sighed, sitting down and grabbing a glass of pumpkin juice and some of the last couple pieces of toast. She ate slowly, taking her time as she looked at a letter she had received from her mother. She was doing fine, but she was worried over Ava. As the war progressed, muggles had begun noticing more and more that they shouldn’t be. Ava had tried to keep her mother in the dark for as long as possible, but figured this may not be so easy anymore. Her mother didn’t need to worry about her, though; it was Ava that should be worrying over her, afterall.

Ava finished her breakfast and tucked the letter in her pocket–she would write her back after she came back from Hogsmeade; Ava knew that her mother would not only enjoy hearing about the trip, but it may also take her mind off worrying as well. Gathering her things, she headed out of the Great Hall and started her solitary walk to Hogsmeade. Everyone else had already left, of course, but Ava didn’t mind. The sky was grey, the air crisp, and the leaves crunched beneath her feet; it was refreshing.

Soon, the village came into sight, and Ava started thinking of where to go first. Honeydukes, perhaps? She wanted to get something for herself as well as Michael, who was stuck in the infirmary. He had insisted the rest of them go without him and to just bring him back some souvenirs, so Ava had resolved to buy him as many jelly slugs and chocolate frogs as she could buy. She’d get him something from Zonko’s Joke Shop, too, but she’d wait until she met up with Zack; the two of them always went there together.

As she walked down the street, Sprintwitches caught her eye. Sprintwitches was a sporting goods store that specialized in Quidditch supplies. In the display window were several shiny new broomsticks. Deciding that this might be a good way to start her day, Ava walked over and stepped inside.

Immediately she was drawn to the Quidditch section, which took up nearly half of the store. Walking through, Ava went through the new brooms to the equipment to a small area dedicated to Quidditch teams and famous players. Looking through it, she picked up a book about Puddlemere United, her team of choice. She flipped through, reading bits about the players, looking at the pictures inside, and wondering what it must be like to be a professional Quidditch player.

“Do you want to go professional?”

Ava looked up upon hearing the voice, which seemed to be almost on cue. Matt Parker stood next to her, looking around at the store’s merchandise.

“Um, no,” Ava said, but as she said it a sudden surge of doubt went through her. “Well..I don’t know, it seems like that would be great to do. But I want to be an auror,” she said, but something felt off as she said it. “Do you?”

Matt shook his head. “No, I’m going for auror, too.”

“Really?” she asked, surprised. “Shocking, considering how you take Quidditch during practice.”

Matt grinned. “Hey, I’d happily play Quidditch professionally. But I’ve wanted to be an auror since I was a kid.”

Ava nodded. She was silent for a moment, hesitating on what she wanted to say. “How..how do you know you want to be an auror? That it isn’t just some...some childhood dream you’ve been dragging with you?”

Matt looked thoughtful for a moment. “I think about it,” he said finally. “It’s easy to imagine yourself being an auror in five, ten years, right?” She nodded. “Instead of thinking about being one then, think about being one later on in twenty, thirty, forty years. Think about yourself rising through the ranks of the auror department. Think about not only fighting the bad guys but also doing paperwork and talking to witnesses and family members and court reporters. If you can’t see yourself being able to do that–or any career, really–as a longterm thing, then...maybe it isn’t for you, you know? And I can see myself doing those things as an auror. I want to do those things–well, not necessarily the paperwork and everything, but you get it, right?”

“Yeah,” she muttered. “I get it.” She looked down at the Puddlemere United book and checked the price–five sickles. Though originally having had no intentions on purchasing it, she decided to buy it. She looked back up at Matt. “Thanks,” she told him.

He nodded. “Sure,” he said. “No problem.”

She nodded. “I’ve got to go. See you, Matt.”

“See you,” he said, going back to his friends.

Ava paid for the book and left the store, looking through the pages as she walked, but not really reading them. Matt’s words echoed through her head and, for some reason, made her feel sick. She had been questioning whether she truly wanted to be an auror for a few weeks now. She supposed everything with the attacks on those muggleborns and Michael being hurt had given her a somewhat distorted, but nonetheless real glimpse of what being an auror was like. She didn’t know if she liked it, honestly; did she really want to be sneaking around and fighting the rest of her life?

Now, playing Quidditch, that was something she could get behind. Ava loved Quidditch and she was good at it. Why couldn’t she play professionally? She could see herself playing on a team like the Holyhead Harpies or the Appleby Arrows or even Puddlemere United. Yes, that would be amazing, to play for Puddlemere United. She could picture herself easily in those blue and gold robes, her blonde hair blowing in the wind as she flew through the stands, playing Beater at the Quidditch World Cup, the crowd cheering her name...

As Ava walked, fantasizing about Quidditch, she nearly walked into a large sign. Quickly diverting her steps, she glanced down on the sign to see an advertisement for Zonko’s. Zack popped into her mind, and as she wondered when she would meet up with him to go to the joke shop with him, something clicked.

Ava stopped dead in her tracks, and suddenly, it felt like she couldn’t breathe. She thought of Matt’s words about the future and thought of Zack and asked herself, could she see herself with Zack in twenty years? Thirty? Forty? Fifty?

No, she thought, suddenly feeling like she might cry. Truthfully, Ava couldn’t even picture herself with Zack in five years. In no way could she ever see herself being happy with Zack or, honestly, anyone.

That was when the truth finally sunk in, taking its place like a heavy, unmovable weight in her chest: Ava had absolutely no feelings for Zack and she knew that she never would have any for him or any other person.

***

Katherine Murray

Kat loved Hogsmeade.

How could she not? It was her home, afterall–her safe haven.

Kat stood close to the door inside of Honeydukes, taking in the sweet smells of chocolate and marshmallow and toffee as she waited for Arthur. She held a bag filled with a small fortune’s worth of sugar quills, ice mice, and pumpkin pasties. She loved Honeydukes–it had fascinated her since she was a child–and always spent her money’s worth to stock up for the time at school between visits.

Arthur walked over to her from the checkout line, carrying his own bag of sweets. “Ready?” she asked him and he nodded. The two left the shop and continued their walk down the street.

“What do you want to do now?” she asked him. “We’ve still got about half an hour before we meet up with Zack and Rachel.”

Arthur shrugged. “What do you?”

Kat thought for a moment. “The Shrieking Shack? It’s always fun to go up there.”

“Isn’t that a little touristy?” he asked.

“Maybe, but it’s still fun to see,” she grinned. “Scared?”

“Of course not. We haven’t heard anything in awhile, anyway.”

“True,” she agreed. “But still, fun to see. Come on, let’s go.” Kat took Arthur’s wrist and started pulling him along to the path leading to the Shrieking Shack.

The walk was mostly silent, and Kat couldn’t help but think it was a little uncomfortable. Arthur was one of her best friends, but ever since she’d been in the infirmary, it had been so...different between the two. Kat had noticed his absence from her visitor’s list and couldn’t help but feel hurt by it. Why hadn’t he visited her? Surely he wasn’t that busy. Or did he just not care enough to visit? Kat told herself that wasn’t true–it must have been something else, right?

They reached the Shrieking Shack and sat by a tree a bit away from it. Kat reached into her bag and pulled out a pumpkin pasty and started to eat. “Want to grab lunch at The Three Broomsticks or somewhere else first?” she asked Arthur. He glanced down at the sweet in her hand and raised an eyebrow. “Oh, shut up, I’m hungry. This is just a snack.”

He shrugged. “Uh...Three Broomsticks, that’ll be easier. Plus, Rosmerta will give us a discount, you know her.”

“Very true,” Kat agreed. “I love her, she’s so great–and she loves us, too, of course. I know you’re happy about that,” she teased him, as she always did when the pretty landlady of The Three Broomsticks came up.

Arthur rolled his eyes, but said nothing. Kat frowned a little–usually, Arthur would tease her back about one thing or another. She was silent for a moment, thinking. “Arthur,” she said finally. “Did I do something to upset you?”

“What?” Arthur looked over at her, surprised. “No, why?”

“Well, you’re just...acting weird, that’s all. You’ve been acting weird since I, you know, almost killed myself,” she said bluntly. “And you know I didn’t want to do that, right? I don’t know what happened exactly, but it wasn’t like I actually wanted to die, and well...you didn’t come to visit me in the infirmary,” Kat murmured, getting quiet at the last part.

Arthur was silent, looking away from her. “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I just...I was just...with, you know, everything, it was...hard,” he finished lamely, obviously uncomfortable.

“Yeah, well, it was for me, too,” she muttered. She stood up. “Come on, let’s just go.” Kat turned and started to walk away.

“Kat, wait,” Kat heard Arthur scramble to get up and she felt his hand grab her wrist. She turned back to him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Really, I am, it was...I was a git. I should’ve visited you in the infirmary and..and I guess I have been kind of...distant. And you didn’t do anything, really,” he insisted.

“Doesn’t seem like it,” she muttered, anger starting to seep into her voice.

“It’s true, though. You didn’t do anything. I just...I guess I just...handled it wrong, you know? It...” Arthur’s voice got quiet. “It kind of reminded me of my family, I guess.”

Kat’s anger immediately softened, realization spreading through with her. Of course he was thinking about his family, she thought. It made sense–they had died just last year. Why wouldn’t one of his friends nearly dying remind him of it? “I’m sorry, Arthur,” she said, taking his hand.

He looked at her, bewildered. “Why are you apologizing? You don’t have anything to apologize for,” he told her.

“It’s not an apology-sorry,” she said, hugging him. He said nothing. They stood there for a moment, a million thoughts of the past few weeks and months and year racing through Kat’s head, until they were interrupted by the sound of laughter and approaching footsteps. Kat pulled away from him and gave him a small smile before turning to look to see who was coming.

Malcolm and Arcanna were walking hand in hand with each other, looking rather content with each other and oblivious to anyone else. They stopped near the Shrieking Shack, looking up at it. Kat heard Arcanna say something to Malcolm that she could not quite understand, but Malcolm laughed at it. Kat smiled–she was happy to see Malcolm look so happy with someone again, especially after his and Annie’s breakup. Now if only Annie would stop being so cryptic about everything and find someone for herself, too, she thought.

Then she turned back to Arthur. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go meet Zack and Rachel.”

He nodded and they walked together to The Three Broomsticks. This walk was quiet as well, but this time Kat did not feel uncomfortable at all, only happy and content.

***

Rachel Hughes

“Excuse me, sorry, excuse me,” Rachel apologized her as she pushed her way through the busy room. She loved The Three Broomsticks, really, but it always got so crowded during school trips. It was much nicer during the holidays when not nearly as many people were in the village.

Rachel stopped in a corner of the room, sighing and scouting the room for a way to get back to her table without risking spilling butterbeer all over herself. She smirked as she saw Stella and Matt sitting over in a corner on yet another date. It wasn’t surprising to her at all that the two had started dating, considering how often he had come over to her house (which was more like a small castle, really) over the summer holidays while she had been staying there for a few weeks. Sure, they had visited the Parkers’ home too under the pretense of visiting Malcolm, but there wasn’t much excuse for her when Matt came visiting them....

Spotting a possible path back to her table, Rachel dove back into the crowd, trying to avoid bumping into anyone. She was nearly to her destination when someone backed into her path.

Rachel walked straight into them, spilling butterbeer on not only herself but the back of the person she’d ran into. “Bollocks,” she muttered, sighing and looking down at her shirt and the mugs. Not all of the drinks had spilled out, thankfully, but there was still a very noticeable stain covering her neckline now. “Sorry,” she said, looking up to see the one and only Lucian Lohse turning around. Oh, damn, she thought.

“Nah, I’m sorry, it’s my fault,” he apologized. “Here, I’ll buy you another drink.”

“Oh–thanks,” she said, surprised.

“Sure,” he said, shrugging as he started walking up to the bar again. Rachel followed closely behind him–having someone a foot taller than you lead was a great way to avoid any more accidents. They reached the counter and Lucian ordered another two butterbeers. Rachel set the two now half-empty mugs down.

“You’ve, uh, got butterbeer on your back,” Rachel said, giving a small laugh. “Here, I can get it.” Rachel took out her wand and muttered the correct spell to clean off his shirt and then did the same to her own clothing.

“Thanks,” he said, grinning.

“‘Course,” she said, smiling. “So, how’s life in Seventh Year Slytherin Land?”

“Horrible,” he said bluntly, but the grin not wavering from his face. “You’ve seen the people I have to deal with in my class, right?”

“Of course,” she said, nodding and thinking of students like Daman Jolicoeur and Adriane Smythe. “You have some lovely classmates. Real model citizens. You know, I’m really surprised that you got Head Boy and Daman didn’t.”

“I know, I know. Can you keep a secret?” He asked. She nodded. “It was rigged–shocking, I know.”

“Oh, that’s horrible,” she said. “Really, I’d much rather have him as Head Boy over you. I think he’d do a fine job, really spruce Hogwarts up a bit, don’t you think?”

“Watch it, Hughes, I’m paying for your drinks, after all,” he warned in jest as he handed her the two new mugs.

“Yes, I suppose that’s one good thing you’ve done,” she said as they began walking away from the bar, using him as a shield again.

“Just one good thing? Damn. Well, that’s something, I guess.”

“Oh, definitely,” she agreed. “Something is better than nothing, right?”

“Exactly,” he nodded as they reached his own table.

“Thank you for the drinks, Lucian,” Rachel said, stopping for a moment before she continued on to her own table.

“No problem,” he said, smiling.

She smiled back, turned around, and finally made it her own destination. She set the drinks down and sat in her chair across from Zack.

“Took you long enough,” he said, looking up.

“Be grateful,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I went through many troubles getting these here.”

“Yeah, this place is really dangerous. I’m sure it was really hard getting those drinks over here.”

“Shut up,” she laughed, pushing his mug over to him and taking a drink from her own. Rachel decided not to mention running into Lucian; she always made a point not to bring him up if the opportunity arose, knowing how much Zack loathed him. It wasn’t like Lucian was a prominent figure in her life, of course, and there weren’t many opportunities for Lucian to come up in their conversations (aside from Zack’s rants about him and Quidditch), but Rachel had ended up excluding Lucian from her stories when she told Zack about the few weeks she spent over at the Lohse Manor. “So,” she started, setting her mug down. “How’s Michael doing?”

“Better,” Zack said. “I think he’ll be out of the hospital wing by...Thursday? Unless Pomfrey decides to keep him longer, anyway.”

Rachel nodded. “That’s good. What happened, anyway? I’ve been hearing a lot of rumors, but they haven’t really told the prefects much about it and I seriously doubt that he was attacked by a grindylow.”

Zack shook his head and glanced around them to make sure no one was within hearing distance. “Someone attacked him,” he said. “Some kind of slashing curse–he could’ve bled out if he hadn’t been found when he was.”

Rachel’s eyes widened. She had known Michael wasn’t in great shape, of course; she’d first heard about it Thursday morning when she and Kyra had walked down to the Common Room to hear the words “Kyra, how’s Michael doing?” and “Oh, you haven’t heard? He’s in the infirmary–I think he was attacked.” Poor Kyra had immediately panicked and ran down to the hospital wing as fast as she could. Rachel had been worried, but she had originally assumed it had been some petty hex someone had cast on Michael, not something that could have potentially killed him.

“That’s awful,” she said. “Who would do that?”

“We don’t know,” he muttered. “He was obliviated, too. He barely remembers leaving the library. He mentioned that he saw you–did you see anything?”

Rachel shook her head. “No...well, Michael was acting a little weird, actually,” she said, thinking back to that night. “He was reading this big, dusty old book and being really secretive about what was in it. It certainly didn’t look like anything I would’ve needed as a fourth year, you know? Maybe that had something to do with it.”

Zack sighed as if this was something he’d heard a million times. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe. It...” he looked thoughtful for a moment and then lowered his voice. “I think it might be connected to what happened to Kat and the others a few weeks ago.”

Rachel looked at him, surprised. “How?” she asked after a moment.

Zack looked cautious, as if he were hesitating on what exactly to say. “I think that what happened to them was a planned attack. I think Michael might have found out something or he was just their next plan. And, Kat, Zia, and Caden–they’re all muggleborns. And Michael has a lot of muggle in him.”

Rachel was silent, processing what he had just said. She had noticed that those three were all muggleborns, yes, but she hadn’t really thought their blood status had anything to do with. Truthfully, she had no idea what had happened, but...

“I doubt this is some kind of pro-You-Know-Who stunt, Zack,” she said quietly. “This is Hogwarts. It’s one of the safest places in the United Kingdom. I don’t know what happened in either of these things, but I don’t think they were related. There are plenty of bullies in Hogwarts, you know that as well as I do, and Michael probably found himself running into one of them at the wrong time. As for Kat and Zia and Caden, well, I know something dark must have happened, but...” Rachel looked down at the table for a moment, hesitating before turning back up to him. “Do you...think you might be taking that too much on a personal level, Zack?”

Zack’s face darkened and immediately Rachel regretted saying anything. “The Ministry was looking into it, they wouldn’t just come into Hogwarts on the account of something negligible. And I seriously doubt that a bully would be willing to use a cutting curse like that–they’ll be expelled when they’re found out. And don’t you think I’ve already stopped to consider the fact that I might be too attached to this since I’ve already tried to off myself before?”

Rachel’s face grew hot and she looked down at the table, a tumultuous ball of guilt, worry, anger, and upset growing inside of her chest. “I’m sorry, Zack,” she murmured. “But it sounds like you and Michael and whoever else have been looking too far into things, and if there really is something bad going on in Hogwarts, well, I don’t want you to get hurt. And–and the threat of expulsion doesn’t always stop people from doing bad things, you know,” she added rather indignantly at the end, bad memories of last year creeping up in her mind.

Zack sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sorry, I know. It's just that...I saw Caden after he got out. He looked fine, happier than ever, no sign of anything having gone wrong. I see something pretty similar with Kat and Zia. I know what suicidal looks like, and that isn't it. Someone is making that happen."

Rachel was silent for a moment, her anger dying out but her worry only intensifying to make up for it. “Kat was the same,” she said. “Something bad did happen, I know that, but the Ministry and the staff are already investigating. If it turns out there is some sort of...grander plot going on, I don’t want you to get hurt because you decide to go detective with Michael. You aren’t, are you?”

“Of course not,” Zack said, but Rachel couldn’t bring herself to completely believe him.

“Hey, guys!” Kat and Arthur showed up at their table, Kat taking a seat next to Rachel and Arthur next to Zack. “What’re you talking about?” Kat asked as she slipped off her jacket.

Rachel smiled. “School, that’s all,” she said, almost grateful for the change in topic. Still, she couldn’t help but worry in the back of her mind over what Zack and Michael might be doing. They and God only knows who else wouldn’t do something so reckless as to try and investigate like some kind of miniature Scooby Doo gang, right?

Of course they would, she thought miserably. It’s Zack and Michael.

***

Zack Johnson

Zack left The Three Broomsticks a couple hours later, the grey sky reflecting his mood of tired. He would have been fine with heading back to Hogwarts, but he had made plans to meet up with Ava, which brightened his spirits a bit.

He spotted Ava waiting at their usual corner, her arms crossed with a few strands of blonde hair blowing across her face. “Hey,” he greeted as he walked up to her.

“Hey,” she said, and immediately Zack sensed something was off. “Can we talk?”

He nodded, which she copied and started walking to small, wooded path in the direction opposite of Zonko’s, their original destination. Zack walked with her, his arm close to hers but not quite touching.

Ava was silent for what felt like hours until finally blurting out the words Zack couldn’t help but expect: “I want to break up.”

“Oh.” Zack said after a moment, looking straight ahead.

“It’s not you,” she said quickly, as if regretting how blunt her words had come out before. “I’ve been thinking a lot about myself, and I finally realized I’m not exactly...straight.” Zack looked at her, having not expected that explanation at all. “I don’t feel attraction to you or anyone else, honestly. I don’t think I’ve ever really felt true attraction to someone, romantically or sexually, and I don’t think I ever will.”

“Oh,” he repeated himself again, feeling like a broken, deflated balloon. “Okay.”

“That–that isn’t...I mean, do you think that–”

“Yeah,” he cut her off. “I mean, no. I mean...no, I get it, you feel that way, it’s fine that you feel–or, I guess don’t feel that way.”

“So you don’t...think I’m weird or a freak or anything?” Ava asked him, looking like his opinion was the only thing that mattered to her in the world.

“Of course not,” he said shortly, looking away from her. He was silent for a moment. “It’s just, you said you wanted to be with me again after avoiding me for a month.”

“I’m sorry, Zack,” she said softly. “Really, I am. That was...I know that was awful and unfair of me. I think I was in denial about it.”

“A month wasn’t enough time for you to figure it out?” Zack asked, anger rising inside of him along with a million other emotions as he turned back to her. “Two months now, really. Or over the summer? God knows you weren’t talking to me as much then, either.”

Ava looked hurt, guilty, upset. “I was confused, Zack,” she said. “It’s not something you can figure out overnight.”

“Of course not, but you had months. Years, even. We’ve been dating for three years. How could you not realize something was wrong with our relationship before now? You can’t just...you can’t just date someone for three years, ignore them for a month, decide you want to get back together with them with barely an explanation, and then break up with them!”

Ava’s face showed a million emotions that Zack couldn’t quite decipher, but he could see hurt and anger among them. “It’s not like you’ve had to deal with this,” she snapped. “This has been so hard, Zack. You are one of the most important people to me in my life. Do you think I want to do this? I would love to be able to love you like that! But I can’t! And I am so sorry to put you through this. I know that this hurts you, that I have hurt you, but it hurts me too. I’m sorry I’ve pulled you along through this, I’m sorry I couldn’t just let myself see it before this. I’m sorry, Zack.” She stopped, her breathing heavy and erratic, looking at him expectantly.

Zack looked away, too, anger and sadness and painful memories clouding his mind like a dense fog. He stood there, staring at the dead bark of an old tree in front of him. Long, silent moments turned into long, silent minutes. Eventually Zack turned around and began to walk away, leaving Ava standing in the path and beginning his solitary journey back to Hogwarts.

Chapter 11
Friday, November 2, 1979

Michael two days later than his originally anticipated release–something about the deepest wound needing more time and dittany to heal, unless he wanted to risk it opening up again. It was frustrating; Michael missed being with his friends and in class.

He’d had visitors, of course. His family had even come to see him–his parents and an older half-sister–though they had admittedly chosen a poor time for their first visit. They’d come to see him during Thursday’s lunch hour, which though was greatly appreciated, interrupted his discussion with Zack, Kyra, Ava, and Natalie. Since then, they hadn’t been able to all be together at the same time. Michael figured it would work itself out eventually, especially since he was no longer confined to the hospital wing.

Timing wasn’t their only issue now, though. Michael had known something was wrong when Ava had arrived by his bedside late Saturday evening, red eyed and exhausted looking, to deliver the sweets she had bought him in Hogsmeade. She’d pushed off any questions and left soon after arriving when he tried to ask what was wrong, but he soon discovered the answer when Zack finally showed up Monday afternoon. Zack was in an even worse mood than Ava seemed to have been in, and when he asked what was wrong, Zack told him that they had broken up.

Michael couldn’t believe it at first; how could Zack and Ava ever break up? He knew that they hadn’t talked during September, yet they had made up just weeks ago. Then Zack explained how Ava was apparently unable to feel attraction and that she had been questioning herself and had finally realized that about herself and it had ended up being a rather angry, painful breakup in the woods.

It made sense, but it made him sad to see two of his closest friends to have such distance between them. Surely they could make up and be friends again, right? They had to, it was Zack and Ava, afterall.

Michael hadn’t been able to stop worrying about this horrible news since then, and even as he went to classes for the first time in over a week his mind dwelt on it. This wasn’t good, though; he needed to focus. He’d been given his homework while staying in the infirmary, sure, but that didn’t mean he totally understand what was going on.

This was exactly his predicament in History of Magic that morning. They were wrapping up their unit on the goblin rebellions with a test next week and Michael had no idea what was going only the few materials Professor Binns had given him hadn’t exactly been helpful. Michael tried to take the best notes he could throughout the period, but by the time the lunch bell rang, he was still as confused as ever.

Eve, he thought, remembering the last time his Hufflepuff classmate had given him notes. Maybe she can help.

Michael stood and walked over to her. “Uh, hey Eve, could I borrow your notes over the past week? I’m pretty lost,” he admitted.

Eve looked up, startled by his appearance. She looked awful–her blonde hair thrown up in a tangled mess, heavy circles hung under her eyes, and she looked like a muggle that had just seen a ghost. “Oh, um, sure,” she stammered, handing her notebook to him.

“Thanks, I’ll get it back to you tonight,” he said, frowning. “Are you okay? You look–”

“Fine,” she said quickly, but truthfully, she looked terrified of him. “And take as long as you need with the notebook. Bye, Michael.” Quickly grabbing her things, Eve practically ran out of the classroom and away from Michael.

Michael stood there holding the notebook in complete bewilderment. What had just happened? Had he done something to her? He couldn’t remember doing anything to her to provoke such a reaction. He had only ever had pleasant conversations with Eve, whom he had only ever seen act cheerful and pleasant. Perhaps something had happened while he was in the hospital wing. Michael was sure he missed plenty of things, anyway.

Michael gathered his things and went down to the Great Hall, sitting in his usual spot. He took out the notes Eve had given him and started to copy them to his own notebook, trying to focus only on them instead of the rest of the problems happening around him.

Yet after only a couple minutes, he was interrupted by Kyra, who sat down next to him despite the weird and annoyed looks she received from the other Gryffindors around them.

“Hi,” she said, starting to serve herself food. “Been able to catch up easily so far?”

“Kind of,” Michael said, deciding to put the notes back into his bag and get food for himself as well. “I’ll get more caught up over the weekend.”

Kyra nodded. “That’s good–at least Pomfrey didn’t wait until Monday or something to let you out. You’ve got the whole weekend ahead.” She smiled. “You shouldn’t spend it all studying, though. Let’s go out to the lake sometime before it gets too cold to tolerate,” she shuddered. “I hate winter, don’t you?”

“I don’t mind it,” he murmured.

“Well, of course you don’t, you’re insane,” she teased. “Do you want to go to the lake or not?”

“Sure,” he nodded.

“Great,” she smiled. Just then Zack sat down by them and started to grab his food. “Hi, Zack,” she said.

“Hi,” he replied with a monotonous tone and a face which showed that the presence of everyone around him was on his nerves.

“How was class?” Kyra asked. Michael could tell that she must have known about him and Ava; Michael figured it was common knowledge by now.

“Fine,” he said, voice still short as he stabbed a piece of pasta with his fork.

“Well, that’s better than bad, I hope.” Kyra glanced down to the other end of the table quickly before looking back. Michael followed her gaze to see Ava sitting with a few other people in her year. He quickly turned away from her and started to eat, but felt a pit in his stomach. He had a feeling that this would not be going away any time soon.

***

The rest of the day went about in about the same way, with Michael unable to fully focus and still struggling to get caught up. He ate supper quickly after classes and then retired to the Common Room, where he sat down in his usual chair and started studying.

Zack eventually joined him, sprawling across the couch next to him. Michael took this as a good sign, figuring Zack easily could have just gone up to his dorm. Then again, Ava was nowhere to be seen, so perhaps that was why.

It was just after curfew when Michael pushed away his books and started thinking of going to sleep; it had been a long day and was starting to get late. It was then that Michael noticed Natalie enter the Common Room. He wondered briefly where she had been, but then remembered she was now part of their investigative group. Maybe we can talk about what we’re going to do next, he thought, forgetting about her late entrance into the Common Room for a moment. It could be a good way to get Zack talking more again. He wondered if maybe this was the way that Zack and Ava would eventually make up; Michael seriously doubted that either of them would want to back out of the investigation.

Just as he was about to call out to her, though, he noticed the focused, stony look on her face as she walked over to Matt Parker, who was laughing with some of his friends. She leaned down to him and said something into his ear. Matt’s face quickly fell and he stood up.

“Zack,” Michael muttered. Zack looked over at him and Michael nodded towards Natalie and Matt, who were now quickly making their way out of the Common Room. Zack sat up straighter. “Do you think something else might have happened?” Michael asked him. “They’re both prefects–what if someone is hurt?"

Zack was silent for a moment, watching the two until they were no longer in sight. “Yeah,” he said, looking back to Michael. “I think someone else just got hurt.”

Chapter 12
Saturday, November 3, 1979

In her entire life, Annie did not remember ever feeling so angry.

She felt a lot of things right now, to be fair, but anger definitely seemed to be the most prominent. She felt worried and scared and hurt and stupid and betrayed and, of course, absolutely furious.

The long walk up to the Divination Tower seemed short, though whether it be because of her brisk pace, fast-moving thoughts, or both, she was not sure. Her mind was racing at lightspeed, but the same thoughts echoed through her mind: ''Malcolm is hurt. Malcolm is at Saint Mungo’s. Emily lied.''

She reached the top of the tower and banged her fist against the door. “Emily!” she called angrily. “Emily, open up!”

The door opened a minute later. Emily stood there, appearing tired and older than she usually did. She did not look surprised at all to see Annie there.

Annie pushed her way in. “He’s hurt,” she said angrily. “He got hurt.”

Emily sighed. “Annie, look–”

“No,” she snapped. “You lied. You said that if Malcolm and I stayed together he would be hurt, that his life would be over! Now he’s in Saint Mungo’s. No one goes to Saint Mungo’s from Hogwarts unless they’re almost dead, right?”

Emily was silent for a moment. “Sit down, Annie,” she said. “I will explain.” Annie continued to stand, glaring defiantly at her longtime mentor. Emily sighed again. “Fine. Malcolm is not going to die, the injuries he sustained are not fatal.”

“Then what happened?” Annie asked, the curiosity and worry practically killing her. She’d woken up that morning only to hear the gossip of how Malcolm Parker had been attacked the night before and had been taken to Saint Mungo’s, but no one seemed to have any details other than that.

Emily was quiet still, looking hesitant as if she were not sure what she should say. Finally, she spoke. “Malcolm was found last night near the edge of the Forbidden Forest by Hagrid. Someone had used the Cruciatus Curse on him.”

Her words hit Annie like a punch to the stomach. She gripped the side of a table for support, falling into one of the chairs. She’d heard of the Cruciatus Curse, a spell designed to make its victim feel unimaginable pain. But who would do that to Malcolm? And why?

“I’m sorry, dear,” she heard Emily say and suddenly, Annie saw red.

“You’re sorry?” she spat, looking up at her. “He is in Saint Mungo’s because someone tortured him, not even half a year after you told me that you foresaw him being hurt if I didn’t break up with him! Well what happened? Would he be okay if I had stayed with him? Would he still be hurt if I had? What?”

Emily’s silence continued and Annie wanted to scream. “I was worried,” she said finally. “I did not believe him to be a good fit for you. His family...Some of the Parkers can be very disagreeable people, very insulting, and as you two seemed so serious at such a young age, I did what I thought was best for you.”

“You...you lied to me and broke us up because you didn’t like his family?” Annie asked, voice dangerously quiet.

“Annie–”

“No,” she said, and suddenly, she was shouting. “No! I trusted you! I have trusted you more than anyone else in the entire world since I was five and you-you took advantage of that! You took advantage of me and used me and forced me away from someone I loved because you didn’t like his family? What did they ever do to you? Did a Parker once break up with you? Or did they insult the sacred art of divination? It’s not so sacred, I guess, considering you used it to lie for you!” Emily looked like she was about to say something, but Annie cut her off. “I have been miserable since May and you have just let me be that way because you are selfish and petty.” Annie shook her head. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before this...I’m usually so good at knowing when people lie...but I guess you knew I wouldn’t, right? Because you knew how much I trusted and respected you. Now I’m here, more depressed than I have ever been in my entire life, unable to talk to any of my friends about it because it would have been too risky to tell them about your fucking prophecy, and Malcolm–who, by the way, has a lovely family–is in the hospital after being tortured with the Cruciatus Curse.”

Emily was silent, and this time, Annie knew she had nothing to say. Annie gave a short, sardonic laugh. “I’m done,” she said, turning away. “Bye, Emily.”

Annie walked out of the room and down the stairs, thinking about everything yet having no real thoughts at the same time. Only when she was halfway down the staircase did she begin to cry, hot tears streaming down her face. She barely made it to the bottom when stopped. She grasped the railing and leaned against it for a moment before falling to the steps. All of the energy her anger had given her was gone and now, she felt weaker than ever. She sat there and sobbed, face buried in arms, unable to care anymore about who saw her.

“Annie?” a voice asked after a minute. She did not respond, only moving her face farther from sight. She heard footsteps approach her and felt someone sit down next to her and put an arm around her. Annie couldn’t bring herself to push them away. She was too tired to even do that. Besides, it felt nice to have someone to cry to. Someone that she knew wasn’t lying to her, anyway.

Eventually, after some several minutes later (truly, Annie did not know how much time passed), Annie calmed down and slowly looked up to see Zack Johnson as her comforter. “Hi,” she said quietly, her voice hoarse.

“Hi,” he said, concern etched across his face. “What’s wrong?”

Annie said nothing for a moment, hesitating, before she gave in and simply told him everything. She told him about Malcolm and the Cruciatus Curse and about Emily and her lies and about how miserable she had been. She started crying again, of course, but to her own surprise, she was not bothered by it. She felt like a giant weight had been lifted off her shoulder–or at least, was no longer hers to bear alone. And at the end of it, when Zack hugged her, Annie was not bothered by that, either.

Chapter 13
Monday, November 5, 1979

That weekend had been some of the uneasy couple days Ava had ever seen at Hogwarts, an aura in the atmosphere set by the staff’s solemn faces and the many rumors that spread through the school like the plague. The Ministry had shown up again, too–Ava had seen them down near the Quidditch field investigating the area.

Whatever had happened to Malcolm Parker had not been good. Malcolm was now at St. Mungo’s and Matt had left Hogwarts Friday night to go there with his parents. It was a popular topic of discussion throughout the school–Ava heard students talking about it nearly everywhere she went, though no one really seemed to know exactly what had happened. The rumors ranged from Malcolm trying to kill himself (a result from the events a month before) to him being attacked by a werewolf, which was ridiculous because the full moon was last night, not on Friday. He had been by the Forbidden Forest, though; why else would the Ministry be investigating there? Had he been attacked by some other creature? Ava knew the Slytherin Quidditch team had been practicing that night, so Malcolm must have been coming back from that.

Ava knew she needed to talk to the others in her investigative group about this; this had to do with their investigation, it had to be. She’d only talked to Natalie about it, though, and that had only been for a few minutes and mostly about the upcoming Quidditch match. This was because they had been in a public setting, though; Ava knew they would all need to meet up together soon to discuss what might have happened. Ava dreaded it, though; she’d only had real conversations with Natalie since her breakup with Zack, barely speaking to Michael and Kyra, who seemed to be supporting Zack much more than her in the whole ordeal.

She didn’t blame them, though; all of this was her fault, she knew that. And it wasn’t like Ava had gone out of her way to speak to them, either. She didn’t want to talk about it to them and she knew that that was inevitable with a conversation with her friends. She’d been sitting by Matt and the other Gryffindors during meals and class and while they welcomed her, she still missed her friends. Yet Ava was avoiding her problems, and for now, she would live with it.

Ava headed to first period Defense Against the Dark Arts early that morning, as she had done with all of her classes for the past week. It made it easier to avoid Zack. Childish, sure, but he did exactly the same, refusing to look at her. She’d switched seats to a chair next to Matt for this class, thankful that Professor Pyrites didn’t care about the seating chart as long as there were no disruptions.

Ava was the first student in the classroom. Pyrites was writing something up at the board and he looked up at her entrance. “Hello, Ava,” he greeted and continued his writing.

“Hi, Professor,” she said as she sat down and looked up at the chalkboard to see what he was doing. He was writing information under the heading The Killing Curse. They were currently learning about The Unforgivable Curses, having done the Imperius Curse first. Funny, she thought. I thought we were doing the Cruciatus Curse next. Ava didn’t think much of it, though, and began taking out her notes to look over before class.

Ava liked Professor Pyrites a lot and thought he might be the best Defense teacher Hogwarts had had while attending the school. The man knew what he was talking about, especially considering he had lived through some of the things he taught; Pyrites was a former cursebreaker and he had a lot of stories to tell about his old job. Ava didn’t necessarily love all of the assignments he gave, of course, which could be rather long, but at least they were interesting. Most of the other students liked him, too, though some of them maybe a little too much. Ava had heard many students talking about what a heartthrob Pyrites was, and while Ava did admit that he was handsome, she wasn’t exactly interested.

Just as she began to read her notes, the door opened again and Ava looked up to see Matt Parker walk in. Matt looked absolutely drained; dark circles hung under his eyes and his hair disheveled. He walked up to Pyrites and the two began to speak quietly. Ava looked back down at her notes, though her focus was no longer on reading. She tried to hear what the two said, trying to listen for anything that might be useful, but she could only make out a few words such as “Malcolm” and “London” and “damage.” After a few minutes, the bell rang signalling the end of breakfast and the beginning of classes. Matt and Pyrites ended their conversation and Matt came over to sit by Ava just as some of the other students began to walk in.

“Hi,” Ava said.

“Hi,” he said, pulling out his textbook and notes. He looked even worse up close, but it was only in his physical appearance; the emotions that his face portrayed were completely neutral.

“How are you?” she asked, hesitating for only a brief second.

“Fine,” he said, voice more lighthearted than not, but Ava knew he had no desire or intention of talking about whatever had happened to Malcolm. She nodded and glanced around the classroom, most of the other students having arrived, including Zack, but she did not look at him. She noticed many of the students glancing over at Matt and muttering to each other, but he gave them no acknowledgement as he read something Ava could not see in his Defense textbook, ignoring them completely. Ava immediately felt annoyed at her classmates for their whispers, but couldn’t help but try to listen to some of the conversations with hopes that it might reveal something useful, though to no avail.

The bell rang and class began. “Good morning, class,” Pyrites said, to which most of the students muttered a reply. “You will be studying the Killing Curse today. Open your books to page 292, read the section, and complete the questions at the end. We will discuss tomorrow.”

There was a small chorus of mumbling as everyone opened their books. Ava didn’t like these kinds of days as much in Pyrites’ class–she far preferred the discussion and lecture days, which were always interesting.

Ava began to read, trying to study it closely. Though she no longer wanted to be an Auror–her heart was now set on joining Puddlemere United–she still considered this class and its teachings to be incredibly important, especially with everything that was happening nowadays.

The Unforgivable Curses were especially fascinating to her, even though they had only just finished studying one of them so far. It wasn’t that she wanted to use them for herself, of course, but to think that there were people that used them comfortably, even liberally, was astounding. Especially the Death Eaters...there always seemed to be an article in the Daily Prophet about one of the spells being used, especially the Killing Curse. The Imperius Curse came up sometimes, too, and even the Cruciatus Curse from time to time. Yet, Ava had a feeling that the Death Eaters used those curses far more often than the Daily Prophet let on...

As she read, Ava found herself thinking that the Killing Curse (the book did not provide the incantation for the spell) was both horrifying and yet almost humane; the book told that death by the curse was instantaneous and (supposedly) painless. Ava wondered what it must be like for the Curse’s victims, especially if they didn’t see it coming. One moment there, the next simply not...not even time to realize what was happening...Ava didn’t know how she felt about that. She thought it would have been almost comforting to know what was happening. She didn’t fear death, not really, but wouldn’t it be better to know what was coming and get a chance to give some sort of last words or be able to choose where to look in the last moments before death? The book described the curse as giving off a brilliant, encompassing green light. Ava didn’t think that would be a very good last sight.

The bell rang to signal the end of class, snapping her out of her thoughts. She gave a small huff of annoyance; she’d let herself get distracted and had completed few of the questions Pyrites had assigned. Ava closed her textbook and gathered her things, and as she did she glanced over at Matt, who seemed to have been even distracted than her; the parchment he had taken out for the assignment was completely blank. As Matt closed his book, Ava couldn’t help but notice the pages he had been on looked nothing like what she had been reading, but she didn’t get a chance to see what the text was over before the pages were closed.

Ava set her things in her bag and stood. “Want to go to the library?” She asked him, knowing he had a free period next as well. “We can copy each other’s answers.”

“Sure,” he said, standing.

The two walked down to the library in mostly silence, though Ava didn’t find it necessarily uncomfortable. She was deep in thought–how could she get information from Matt? She needed to find out more about Malcolm. The group needed a good lead; they were getting nowhere. Certainly Matt could help them with something...

They sat down at a table in the library near a few other groups of students and took out their books. “Okay, I didn’t actually do any of the questions,” Matt admitted. “What’d you get for number one?”

Ava and Matt worked on the assignment, dividing the questions for them to do. She decided to actually try to keep her focus on the assignment this time, but Ava had barely managed to get get her first three problems done when Natalie sat down next to them.

“Hello,” Natalie greeted them and Ava immediately knew she meant business, though for what exactly she wasn’t sure. She barely gave them a chance to reply before turning towards Matt. “How are you?”

“Fine,” he said the same way he had earlier, and Ava knew he must’ve said the same thing a hundred times before. “Yourself?”

“Okay,” she said. “Alright, I need to know: will Malcolm be here for the Quidditch match?” Ah, Quidditch, of course, Ava thought, remembering that the Slytherins would need a replacement Keeper if Malcolm didn’t return in time for next Saturday’s match.

“No.”

“Will you?”

“Yes.”

Natalie nodded. “Okay. That means that Yune girl will be Keeper instead...” Natalie nodded again, seeming to be mainly talking to herself now. “We can use that to our advantage, she’s good enough but she hasn’t had as much practice with the rest of their team. I think she tends to fight dirty though...” Ava coughed. Natalie looked up and her eyes widened, realizing what she was saying and who she was saying it in front of. “Hell, sorry Matt, I don’t–”

“It’s fine,” he interrupted quickly, his face rather unreadable. “We shouldn’t worry too much about her, but we shouldn’t underestimate them just because their team dynamic has been set off.”

“Is that directed at me?” Ava asked, suspicious.

“Yes,” he said easily, and Ava noticed how his demeanor seemed to be more believably-relaxed than it had earlier, now that he was in his natural environment of Quidditch-Talk-With-Natalie. “But not just you, it’s for everyone–but mainly you. You can get cocky. Just because you’re a Beater doesn’t mean underestimating their Keeper won’t affect our performance.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she muttered. She would never admit it, but she couldn’t help but feel a little more nervous than usual for this match; she had more than just her arrogance to worry about when it came to outside factors messing up the team’s performance. Zack and Ava had not been as in sync with each other as they had been in the past during their last few practices, and she could only hope it would get better before the much-anticipated match. “I’ll be fine. I’m the best Beater that Hogwarts has to offer, after all.”

“Exhibit A,” Natalie pointed out, smirking. “Okay, I need to go, but practice tonight at five-thirty sharp, don’t be late.” Natalie stood, and as she did Ava felt a small piece of paper force itself into her hand just before Natalie stepped away from the table. Ava quickly slid it into her pocket. “See you tonight,” Natalie said.

“See you,” Ava muttered as Matt said his own goodbye and Natalie walked away. She wanted nothing more than to look at the piece of paper Natalie had given her, but there was no good way to see it without Matt noticing. “So,” Ava said, trying to push her curiosity out of her mind and turning her attention back to the homework. “How many problems have you gotten so far?

The two managed to finish the assignment just before the bell rang and they went their separate ways, Matt to his next class and Ava to another free period. As soon as Ava knew she was safe, she pulled out the paper Natalie had given to her and read it quickly as she walked through the halls.

Basement–7:30 tonight, read the note in Natalie’s neat, tidy handwriting. Ava felt a rush of nerves and excitement; the group was going to meet tonight.

***

Quidditch practice that night had not improved from last week; if anything, it was worse. Not only were Zack and Ava were still not in-sync, but Matt seemed to be distracted the entire practice and missed more than a few goals while the Keeper, a seventh year named Maya who happened to have a serious head cold, let in more than a few shots when she shouldn’t have. Natalie, who had stopped their playing several times to yell at all of them, finally gave up when some miscommunication on Zack and Ava’s part ended up getting her a bludger to the arm.

“Okay,” Natalie seethed, gripping her arm tightly when they were all back down on the ground again. “We’re going to say this practice is...void. Invalid. Nullified. Okay? Tomorrow will be better,” she said, and the way she said it seemed more like a command than a hopeful remark. “Matt, get some sleep; Maya, go see Madam Pomfrey; Zack, Ava...work it out. Enough so that we can play, please.”

Zack scowled and Ava looked away, frustrated and mad. Natalie said a few more things that Ava only half-listened to and then she dismissed them, ending practice half an hour early than planned. Ava immediately went to the locker room, drowning her anger in a very long, very hot shower that left her skin tinted pink when she finally finished. Her teammates had all left by then, too, which she was glad for; she still had half an hour before she was supposed to meet the others in the basement, but despite the fact that Natalie and Zack were going to be there, she had no desire to walk there with either of them.

Ava was so frustrated with Zack! Herself too, of course; the whole ordeal, really. But Zack...she felt so guilty over what had happened between them; he didn’t deserve to be tossed around their relationship because she couldn’t figure out her own feelings. But she couldn’t help feel a little angry with him as well; didn’t he understand that she was hurting, too? It wasn’t like any of this was easy for her. Did he really think that Ava wanted this to happen? That she wanted to be like this and feel the way she did?

At least he didn’t seem to think she was a freak; when they’d broken up on that little path in Hogsmeade, he’d been more angry about her actions, not her feelings, and she took some comfort in that. Ava wondered if knowing he thought she was a freak would be worse than knowing he thought she was a bitch (which he did, didn’t he?).

Just as Ava was about to leave the locker room, she realized that this must have been about the time that Malcolm was hurt last Friday. He had last been seen at the Slytherin’s Quidditch practice, afterall. He most likely would have left the lockers alone, then...Maybe now that she was alone, she could find something.

Ava finished dressing, slung her bag over her shoulder, and walked out of the door, but instead of heading towards the castle, she walked in the direction of the Forbidden Forest. Yet she barely made it a past the Quidditch field when she heard voices and stopped, squinting into the darkness from behind the stands.

Standing near the edge of the forest were two wizards with robes that Ava recognized as being from the Ministry. She was silent, listening carefully and straining to hear their conversation.

“....to the other governors to get us here permanently.”

“Doubt that’ll happen, they’re all divided against each other. They don’t want the school’s rep to be damaged.”

“Shocked they haven’t put something in the papers about it.”

“It’s all hushed up. It’ll be in the papers when they want it to be. They never published anything about those curses.”

“Yeah, but those were just muggleborns, I heard Parker’s kid won’t be out of Mungo’s for months, if he’s lucky.”

“Don’t be spreading rumours, that might not be true. It’ll all depend on the kid’s mind and the one who cast it, anyway, you know that. The Unforgivables are tricky like that–”

Ava’s bag slipped from her shoulder and fell, landing with a louder-than-usual thud upon the ground. “Bollocks,” she hissed, quickly grabbing her bag, but the damage was done; immediately the two wizards had stopped talking and were now approaching her spot from behind the bleachers.

“What’re you doing?” One of them demanded. “Don’t you have curfew?”

“Sorry,” she said, giving a sheepish smile. “Got done with practice, wanted to take a walk before going back to the castle. Curfew’s not for a while.”

“Didn’t your practice already finish? Half an hour ago?” The other one asked skeptically.

“I needed to shower,” she said.

“Right,” he said somewhat skeptically, but he accepted the answer. “Get back to the castle–the other way.”

“Okay,” she said, nodding. “No problem. Thanks.”

Ava quickly turned and started walking back to the castle, mind racing with the information she had just learned. So some sort of curse had been involved those muggleborns had tried to kill themselves! That must have been what they were talking about, it had to be. And the governors, they meant the Hogwarts Board of Governors, didn’t they? Of course some of them didn’t want protection here full-time, reputation was everything to those powerful-wizard types. As for Malcolm...someone had used an Unforgivable on him? But what? It couldn’t have been the Killing Curse, so that left the Imperius and Cruciatus Curses. While the Imperius Curse did make some sense given the right circumstances, Ava had a sick feeling that it was not the Unforgivable Curse that that Ministry wizard had been referencing.

Returning to the castle, Ava decided to go straight to the basement instead of climbing up to her dormitory to drop off her bag, but with time to kill before 7:30, she stopped off at the kitchens. After being greeted by half a dozen half-elves, she sat down by the fireplace with a cup of tea, rehearsing what she needed to say to the others when the time came and shoving down any anxiety she felt about the meeting. Finishing her tea, she glanced up at the clock, which showed it to be time to go. Ava gave a little sigh, set down her mug, grabbed her bag and walked out of the kitchen.

Just as she stepped out of the portrait hole and began to turn towards her destination, the sound of hushed, anxious whispers stopped her. Ava turned back around to see two students—a tall dark haired boy and a skinny blonde girl—walking in the opposite direction of Ava’s destination near the Hufflepuff dorms, their backs facing her. Though she couldn’t hear exactly what they were saying, Ava thought she heard the girl pleading with the boy. Deciding that the meeting could wait, she began to follow the two students at a distance. They soon turned down a small corridor and Ava quickly caught up. She peered around the corner, but saw no sign of them, only a few doors and a dead end; carefully walking forward, she listened carefully at each door until finally hearing their words again. Ava listened closely, ear against the doorframe, but their conversation was still hushed. The girl’s voice seemed high and desperate, though, and the boy’s words were quiet. Ava thought she heard something about a family and a curse, bringing her thoughts back to Malcolm. Are they talking about the Parkers? She wondered.

The talking continued for a few more moments before stopping, but the sound of footsteps quickly replaced it. Ava scrambled away from the room, ducking through the next closest door and closing it just in time. She was now in a very tight, cramped broom closet; barely breathing and completely still, Ava waited as she heard the two students walk by the closet and out of the corridor. She stayed there for a few more minutes just to be safe and then opened the door, stepping back out into the hall. That boy had seemed so familiar, but she couldn’t be sure who he was. As for the girl...she had sounded so upset; was she okay? Ava wanted to find them and try to find out, but she knew that the two were long gone; she would have to investigate later.

Ava headed back towards her original location, an empty classroom in a side hallway near the Hufflepuff dormitories. They had picked the room for their meeting place shortly after Michael was attacked–it was more convenient for Kyra, plus it wasn’t very inconspicuous to be having these discussions in the middle of Gryffindor Common Room–but the five of them had only met there once before and they hadn’t had much to talk about.

Ava reached the classroom, pushed down her nerves, and knocked on the door once before opening it and stepping inside. All of their heads turned quickly to look at her. Natalie sat at the edge of one of the many long tables that were placed across the room; Zack leaned against the table across from her, Michael standing next to him; and Kyra sat on the floor by his feet, leaning up against the leg of the table.

“Hi,” she said.

“You’re late,” Natalie said. “Thought you forgot; we started without you.”

“Didn’t forget, I got held up,” she muttered, feeling rather irritated. Ava hadn’t been that late, had she? It didn’t seem like it had been very long since she left the kitchens. “What did I miss?”

“It’s about Malcolm,” Zack said, seeming rather annoyed. “He’s in Mungo’s because someone used the Cruciatus Curse on him.”

Oh. So it had been the Cruciatus after all...it made sense, especially with Pyrites’ unscheduled change in lesson plan. Maybe he had thought it would’ve been too hard on Matt to be learning about the Curse so soon after the attack. That definitely made sense; even though she didn’t know much about the Cruciatus, she could only imagine how horrible it must be. Then again, Ava didn’t think that Matt had even been reading the section Pyrites had assigned today. She wondered if he had been reading up on the Cruciatus on his own. She also wondered how Zack knew this information, but she didn’t want to ask.

“I know. I mean, I figured, anyway,” Ava said and told them what she had overheard after Quidditch practice.

“So someone did curse Kat,” Michael muttered, frowning.

“Maybe it was the Imperius,” Natalie suggested, deep in thought. “It would make sense.”

Zack shook his head. “Kat said she felt sad, though, didn’t she? She still did it of her free will, even if it wasn’t...her exactly. People under the Imperius don’t feel any emotion or even realize what they’re doing.”

“It still must’ve been something pretty bad, though,” Kyra said. “Considering they used the Cruciatus on Malcolm. What a bunch of pissheads,” she muttered angrily. Ava realized she might have only just found out what the Cruciatus was and couldn’t help agree with her statement. “I can’t believe they’d try to cover this all up. How could Dumbledore try to cover this all up?”

“Dumbledore probably can’t do anything about it,” Natalie said. “The Board of Governors has more power over the school than he does. And so many of them are connected to the Ministry, it’d be easy for them to get the Prophet not to publish anything.”

“They think the school’s rep is more important than its safety,” Zack muttered in disgust.

“They’re not all bad,” Ava said, suddenly remembering. “Matt and Malcolm’s dad, he’s on the Board, isn’t he? And the Ministry. Joseph Parker, I think. Pretty sure he’d rather have safety over reputation, especially after what happened to Malcolm.”

“But why Malcolm?” Natalie asked suddenly, eyes wide in realization. “He’s not muggleborn, he’s not even half-blood. He comes from a respectable, pureblood family. Everyone likes the Parkers.”

“Obviously not everyone,” Zack said.

“That or they just really hated the Slytherin Quidditch team,” Kyra said. “I’ve heard rumors it was someone from Gryffindor, ‘cause of the upcoming match and all.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Ava said. “Even if they didn’t know it was the Cruciatus. Malcolm’s brother is on the opposing team. They might argue over the match, but they don’t hate each other.”

“Any rumour will spread around here,” Natalie said, scowling. “But that’s not the point. It seems like this was a planned attack and was probably specifically against Malcolm, unless they just went for whoever was the last one out of the locker room, but that’s sloppy and if they were really just anti-muggleborn then they could’ve just gone for Kat, seeing as she’s the only muggleborn on the Slytherin team and..well, assuming these are the same people that cursed Kat before, they’re probably not very happy she’s still alive.”

Everyone was quiet for a moment until Michael finally spoke up. “It all points to You-Know-Who.”

Now everyone was truly silent, letting Michael’s words soak in. Ava completely agreed; while the possibility of the original attacks being related to Voldemort had always been a possibility, never had it seemed more likely it directly involved the man. But how could he have ever gotten Death Eaters onto the Hogwarts grounds, let alone able to attack multiple students on different occasions? And why would he bother attacking people at Hogwarts? Didn’t he attack enough people outside of the school? It didn’t make any sense. It always could have been some of his crazy followers that weren’t actually working for him; Ava had heard a couple stories of wizards and witches taking the initiative to follow Voldemort’s beliefs without his direct command. But who? Of course there were prejudiced students throughout the school, most of them Slytherins, but the fact that the Slytherin House’s Quidditch Team had just lost a key player right before their most hyped-up match of the season helped Ava think a little more outside of the box. Whoever it was, though...Ava had a feeling that if they weren’t found out soon, things were about to get much worse for the students of Hogwarts.

The Quidditch Match
Saturday, November 17, 1979

Katherine Murray

When she had made the team, Kat hadn’t counted on feeling so nervous before her first Quidditch match. Yet that morning, she couldn’t remember ever feeling so nervous before in her life. She hadn’t gotten near enough sleep last night (for the past two weeks, really) and now she could barely stomach the egg and two pieces of toast she had to eat.

Kat sat at the Slytherin table with the rest of her housemates, though she mainly sat alone. She would’ve been grateful for that–Kat didn’t feel like showing her anxiety to anyone else–except she desperately wished Malcolm were there with her. Malcolm and Kat had been friends since first year; he had made it so much easier for her to be one of the few muggleborns in Slytherin house, standing with her when it came to dealing with hateful purists as well as helping her with Quidditch training and being her study partner. Not having Malcolm there with her for her first Quidditch match felt wrong, especially since this was the Slytherin versus Gryffindor game. Malcolm should’ve been sitting next to her, boasting about how he was going to win his annual bet with his brother, doing his various little pre-game rituals and just...being there. But now, Kat didn’t even know what had happened to him or how he was doing. Had he tried to kill himself under the same influence of whatever Kat had been under in October? Had he been attacked by a creature from the Forbidden Forest? Malcolm had been the last person to leave the locker rooms after Quidditch practice that night; if she had left with him, would he be okay?

Malcolm wasn’t the only thing Kat worried over, though; she was desperate to prove herself in front of the school and especially her house. She was a good Chaser, she knew that, but she needed to show everyone else that. Especially that awful Veronica Leigh, who would laugh and make snide comments whenever Kat made the smallest mistake in practice. She needed to do well during this match.

As Kat picked at her eggs with her fork, lost in her thoughts, Arcanna sat across from her. Kat glanced up at her. “Hi,” she said.

“Hello,” Arcanna muttered back as she began to prepare herself a cup of tea. “It’s bloody cold out, have fun flying.”

“Great,” Kat sighed, looking up at the ceiling of the Great Hall, which showed it to be quite overcast outside. “Hope it doesn’t rain.”

“Don’t think it will,” Arcanna said, looking down the table. “Maybe, I don’t know.”

“Probably not,” Kat agreed, to which Arcanna made only a small hum of distracted agreement. She was staring at someone near the other end of the table, her eyebrows furrowed in deep thought, but when Kat glanced that way she couldn’t figure out who Arcanna was staring at.

Arcanna had definitely been acting differently the past two weeks, though you might not realize it if you didn’t spend a lot of time with her. Kat had never been too close to Arcanna, but she spent a decent amount of time with her. Arcanna and Malcolm had been dating for about two months now and Kat figured she was taking Malcolm’s attack a lot harder than she let on. She didn’t think Arcanna knew what had happened to him–no one else seemed to, after all–but if Arcanna was anything at all like Kat, that just made it worse. Arcanna wouldn’t talk about it much, of course, but over the past two weeks Kat could sense the always growing anger and sometimes even fear inside of her over whatever had happened.

Kat glanced down at her watch, sighed, and shoved her half-eaten plate of food away from her. “I’ve got to go get ready,” she told Arcanna. “See you.”

“See you,” Arcanna said, still focused on whatever was so interesting at the end of their table where a large clump of students sat. Once again, Kat could sense Arcanna growing angry, but she had no idea what exactly it was over. Shaking her head a little, Kat stood up and started walking towards the exit of the Great Hall.

“Hey, Kat!” a voice said from behind and she turned to see Michael Johnson catching up to her. “Uh, hi,” he said.

“Hi, Michael,” she said. “How’re you?”

“Uh, fine, yourself?”

“Fine,” Kat said, looking at him expectantly. “Um...did you need something? I don’t have a lot of time to talk, I’ve got to get ready for the match.”

“Uh, yeah, right,” he said, nodding and frowning a little, as if he were trying to remember exactly what he wanted to say. “I was, uh, wondering if you knew how Malcolm was doing.”

“Oh,” she said, unsurprising by the question itself but taken a little off guard by who was asking it and when. “No, sorry. I know just as much as everyone else does.”

“Right,” he said, looking more than a little discouraged. “Okay. Thanks, anyway. Uh, good luck playing.”

Kat smiled a little. “Thanks, but shouldn’t you be wishing me the opposite considering I’m playing against your house?”

“Oh. Right,” Michael said, smiling a little sheepishly. “Uh...good luck playing in all of your other matches, I guess?”

She grinned. “Thanks, Michael. See you later,” she said, turning and continuing her walk to the Quidditch pitch. Her grin quickly faded from her face, but she took a deep breath and managed to keep a small smile on her face. This is going to be a good game, she decided. It has to be.

***

Ava Bankowski

The locker room was relatively quiet as the Gryffindor team changed for the match. Though it was usually like this, Ava noticed a rather solemn vibe that her teammates seemed to give off. There was no doubt that the team was more nervous than usual and Ava couldn’t help but think that she was to blame due to her and Zack being out of sync. While they definitely played better together than they had a couple weeks before, it was still...forced. Still not what it used to be.

Ava had begun to accept that their relationship–the friend side of it, of course–would probably never be what it used to be. Maybe she was just being pessimistic, but right now...well, she couldn’t see any hope for that friendship.

Despite her team’s apparent mood, Ava herself didn’t feel too terribly nervous–though admittedly, she was a bit more anxious than she usually was before matches. She blamed this on her and Zack being out of sync as well. It would be okay, though, she decided. As long as managed to beat back Slytherin, they would be fine. Besides, Zack would be mainly focused on his rivalry with Lucian, so it didn’t matter as much, anyway. It would be fine.

Ava finished changing and leaned up against one of the lockers, waiting for Natalie’s usual pep talk. She glanced over at Matt, who was strapping on his gloves. She almost made a comment to him about him and his brother’s usual bet on this game, but then she remembered where Malcolm was and quickly shut herself up.

Everyone finished dressing and Natalie cleared her throat. “Okay, team,” she said as she crossed her arms, entering into her extreme business-like mode that she always went into on game day. “I know we’ve had some bumps in the road during practice, but we’re here now and all of that is nothing now. We may have won the Cup last year, but we easily could have lost just the same. I want this to be the year that we crush Slytherin’s point records into the bleeding ground. Taylor, try to keep Sigurdson off of the Snitch until we’re at least one hundred points ahead of them. You can do it, you’re better than him,” she told the Seeker, a fifth year named Carly. “Arslan, keep at it with your Double Loop Eight, it’ll throw them off well,” she told the Keeper, referring to one of Maya’s game tactics. Natalie turned to Zack. “And Johnson, I swear to God if we get penalized because of you and Lohse’s stupid rivalry, you’ll be doing laps until the next match. At least try to balance out your hits. Got it?”

“Got it,” Zack said irritably.

“Thanks. Okay, team. Keep your eyes up, pay attention to the wind, and try not to pay too much attention to the commentary. Let’s go.”

Ava grabbed her broom–a new model she had bought this summer after saving up her money–and walked out onto the Quidditch Pitch with her team. Immediately the sounds of crowd reached her ears as the student body cheered for the game to start. The air was crisp and though it was only a little breezy on the ground, Ava knew it would be much windier up above. From across the field, the Slytherin team walked towards them to meet in the middle. Ava found it a bit ironic that when her team stood next to the Slytherins, their biggest rivals, Gryffindor’s crimson robes with their emerald looked like some sort of Christmas advertisement.

“Gryffindor and Slytherin teams enter the field,” Kyra’s voice said, projecting over the field as commentator for the second year now. “Gryffindor won the Quidditch Cup last year, of course, but it was nearly Slytherin. That was a great match, I’m sorry for all you firsties who missed it. Our Team Captains are Gryffindor’s Natalie Cole and Slytherin’s Lucian Lohse...”

Ava began to tune Kyra out as they reached the middle of the field and she began to focus herself completely on the match. Natalie and Lucian stepped up next to Madame Hooch, the referee, and shook hands. Ava took her proper position next to her broom, looked over at the Slytherin team, and immediately saw Veronica Leigh staring at her with a rather malicious grin. Veronica had always been Ava’s biggest rival, sort of like Lucian and Zack but for Veronica it seemed to be less competitive and more I-will-destroy-you. Ava just smiled at her right back, though. Ava was used to Veronica’s violence; she wasn’t worried about her.