Magnetic Plot Armour [HP/MGCYOA(-ish)]

[AmaiKotori]

Once dinner was over, Abbott and her counterpart gathered all the Hufflepuff first-years together, holding us together while the greater mass of students flowed out of the hall in a cacophonous torrent. (At the least, they were more polite than the shout of 'Hey, midgets!' I caught from the next table over. I mean, it's not like we were all Euan's size. Or mine. Or Isolde's... damn it, he was more right than I cared to admit. I missed looking my age.)

"Okay, everyone, in case you missed it, I'm Hannah Abbott, and this is Ernie Macmillan. We're your prefects, so feel free to come to either of us if you need help or advice. You can ask the sixth- and seventh-year prefects as well, of course, but come to us first if we're around."

They talked as we walked, heading down a long corridor from the Entrance Hall that terminated in a short spiral stair downward. Macmillan was broad with the kind of carefully-arranged hair I was starting to just assume was done with magic, his voice the sort that carried without effort. "Being in Hufflepuff means you should never be stuck on your own. Like the Sorting Hat said, we're probably in for a difficult year, but we're not going to let that slow us down."

Abbott shot him a look before continuing. "Our dorms are in the first basement. It's easy to get to the Entrance Hall from here, as you can see, but Hogwarts in general is a bit of a maze. We'll show you around tomorrow, and you're welcome to explore on your own, but try to stick with each other on class days until you've gotten used to the building, so you're not late. As an example those of you from Muggle families won't be expecting, there's more than one staircase here that takes you to a higher floor as you walk down."

I guess I'd take her up on that permission to go exploring, because now I wanted to find them just for the novelty.

We stopped in front of a stack of huge barrels, and Macmillan showed us the secret knock to get one of them to open up its top and reveal a round entrance-hole at the other end. The barrel was wide enough I only had to crouch to get through, but the older students would definitely be crawling.

"Get the code wrong and you''ll be soaked with vinegar and locked out to boot, so memorize it carefully, and don't spread it around to the other houses. This is our space."

It was a nice space, at that; a large round room with lush yellow carpets and soft black armchairs in groups around small tables. A pair of fireplaces formed a rough triangle with the entrance, and in the back was a second pair of doors. The colours brought to mind a beehive more than a badger's sett, but the house's coat of arms hung prominently from the wall across from us.

A circular couch to one side was conspicuously empty of the older students filling half the available seating, and sure enough, we were directed there next, nearly filling it even as closely-spaced as we were. The prefects took seats on either side of the small gap allowing entrance, and I found myself with Katherine on one side and a redhead whose name I couldn't remember on the other.

"Now, I'm sure you're all looking forward to a bed soon, but there's one more thing we'd like to do." Abbott leaned forward, hands clasped between her knees. "Like I'm sure Professor McGonagall told you, the same as she told us when we arrived, your House is to be like your family here, and while that doesn't mean you all have to like each other, I do want you to at least know each other. Not talking to each other causes a lot of pointless fights, and I know you probably didn't have time to get acquainted with everyone else at dinner."

Macmillan continued for her, legs crossed and hands folded neatly atop them. "So we're just going to go quickly around and make sure you're all properly introduced. I'm sure you've done something similar before; just tell everyone your name and a couple things about yourself."

The boy to his left, on the taller side with messy black hair and grey-green eyes, hastily stifled a yawn when Macmillan's attention turned to him. "Uh, I'm Ranald Black." He immediately held up a hand as one of the boys opposite opened his mouth. "And 'cause five people have asked me already, I'm not one of 'those Blacks,' I'm muggleborn."

"You really do look like one, though," the one he'd interrupted put in.

"It's a common name!"

"Alright, let's keep going." At Abbott's smiling encouragement, the redhead next to me spoke up.

"Baldric Thorn. My family's from Cornwall, and I like Muggle duelling."

That got a few odd looks. "Like, with your fists?"

"With a rapier," he clarified, and the dubious looks intensified.

"That's certainly interesting, although I'm afraid you might find it a difficult hobby to keep up at Hogwarts," Abbott said, leaving Baldric a touch disgruntled but resigned.

Now, what to say that didn't touch on fairy stuff... "Alaine Ross. I'm muggleborn, but I spent a lot of time helping at the apothecary this summer."

"Hufflepuff is a good place to be if you like plants," Macmillan said. "Professor Sprout, our Head of House, is the Herbology teacher."

Katherine jumped in almost as soon as he was finished speaking. "I'm Katherine Hedges! I like Quidditch, swimming, and Potions!"

Abbott gave her a rueful smile. "The lake's too cold to swim in most of the year, although some crazies will insist otherwise. Nice enough in June, though."

The next girl, a long-haired brunette who looked like she hadn't quite lost her baby fat, opened with a simple "Rose." After a few seconds of expectant looks from everyone else in the circle, she frowned and added "Zeller. Uh, I like books and want to be a writer?"

The introductions wrapped up quickly enough, helped by the fact that most of them had been talking already at dinner. Michael Weirbrook was half-French and fully bilingual, Sacheverell Janson wanted to be a Healer and gave everyone pre-emptive permission to call him 'Sachie,' Karo Mäkinen just wanted to learn all the magic she could and didn't much care what kind, and Alpin Davies had a brother in Ravenclaw he was determined to do better than.

"Alright, very good. Any final questions before bed?" Macmillan said as we finished up.

Michael raised a hand, getting a quick nod. "Is it true that You-Know-Who came back to life?"

I could feel the mood dropping immediately, confusion from Ranald and Karo threading through a mix of worry, skepticism, and grim determination from the witchy folk.

Macmillan, the source of most of the determination, gave a much more solemn nod to that question. "It is, yes. Dumbledore announced it at the end of last semester."

Abbott held out both hands to quiet the resulting burst of chatter; it was to her credit that it worked at all, let alone so effectively. She was, I decided, pretty good at looking like she knew what she was doing. "Not everyone believes that. I'm not entirely certain, myself."

Her counterpart gave her an aggrieved look. "Hannah, you saw what happened at the Third Task as well as I did."

She winced visibly before continuing. "Something happened, yes, and obviously someone murdered Cedric, I'm not denying that, but we don't know for sure it was actually You-Know-Who. I certainly hope it wasn't."

"Dumbledore said it was," Macmillan said stoutly.

"And if he'd been there, that would be enough for me, too, but he only had one person's word to go on."

"Sorry, but who's this 'You-Know-Who' bloke?" Ranald cut in, looking like he very much wanted the talking to end so he could go to bed already.

The prefects cut off, taking in the stares of their charges, and Abbott sighed. "Sorry, that's a long conversation. Let's leave it for tomorrow."

Macmillan felt rather like he'd prefer to continue the argument, but he mastered himself well enough, getting to his feet and prompting the rest of us to follow. "Right, the doors at the back lead to the dorms. Boys on the left, girls on the right. The first door down the hall is yours, and you'll find your luggage inside."

"If you'd prefer, we'll take you to the Great Hall for breakfast tomorrow, but if you want to go early on your own, meet the rest of us there afterwards. We'll show you where all your classrooms are, although classes won't start until Monday."

The four of us split off to follow Abbott, who left us at the door to our dorm to find her own bed. The dorms matched the careless luxury that characterized much of the school, each of us given a soft, oversized four-poster bed and our own polished wooden writing-desk.

"So, I know she said later, but... short version? 'You-Know-Who?'" Karo asked, tugging the tie out of her short brown ponytail.

"I only know he was a Dark Lord and caused a civil war a while ago," I said while pulling my robe over my head and into pocketspace. Boss really could have been more detailed...

"He was one of the most terrible Dark Lords Britain's ever seen," Katherine said with uncharacteristic seriousness. "My mum spent years fighting him. No one even says his name."

"And he's come back to life?" Karo said, looking at Katherine askance. "Wizards can do that?"

"Not without terrible Dark Magic... Mum says it's probably someone trying to pretend to be him, to scare people."

It wasn't, but I couldn't explain how I knew that, so I kept my mouth shut. Somehow, I still found myself with Katherine's face right in front of me a second later. "Ooh, Alaine, what's that outfit?"

Reflexively, I glanced down at the fairy outfit I'd basically been treating as underclothes for the past several weeks. Macnair had called it armour, and I hadn't seen any reason to be without it after that. Especially after the Dementors. I just... hadn't really considered the impossibility of keeping it hidden while sharing a room with three other girls. "Uh, it's... um."

Karo raised an eyebrow as she shook out a nightdress. "Did you really wear that to the station?"

"No! No way! I had my robe on the whole time!"

"I suppose it is rather revealing, but it looks good with your hair," Katherine said, apparently completely unbothered by the former. It wasn't her wearing it! "I've never worn a skirt under robes, though. What's it for?"

Agh, if it wasn't for the skirt, I could just call the whole thing underwear and be done with it. "That's, uh, I don't think I can really explain." Hastily turning my back, I removed the rest of it and pulled on some fluffy pyjamas in hopes that out of sight would equal out of mind.

When I risked a look behind me, Katherine was back at her trunk changing into her own nightclothes, feeling a bit frustrated; I hoped I hadn't offended her, but I was still lost for a reasonable explanation.

Karo sidled closer as soon as I met her eyes, though. "I know wizarding fashion's a century or three out of date, but they're basically just dresses, right?" she whispered, a little nervous and embarrassed. "The clerk at the robe shop said you don't need more than knickers underneath; did you hear otherwise?"

I winced; apparently she either hadn't noticed or hadn't cared enough to be distracted by my clothes popping in and out of nowhere. But at the same time, I didn't want her worrying over her own clothing just because I had things I couldn't talk about. "Ah, no, I'm sure you're right," I whispered back. I mean, the closest I'd gotten to the robe shop was stealing designs from their display window, but they were basically dresses. "I'm not wearing them 'cause I'm embarrassed or anything, it's just, erm."

Reassuring her wasn't entirely to my benefit; as the nervousness slipped away, the corners of her lips turned up and she raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Really?"

My shoulders slumped. "I really don't know how to explain..."

"I guess we'll leave it at that for now, then." Smiling, she slipped away to her own bed, and I flopped down on mine.

I felt better almost immediately; it was the most comfortable bed I'd ever had. Yeah, I'd deal with everything else in the morning.

 

[AmaiKotori]

I woke at four in the morning, according to the grandfather clock at one end of the room I could barely see in the moonlight. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that was when I gave up on staying asleep any longer. I simply wasn't tired any more, and the prospect of exploring the castle was bringing back some of that giddy anticipation I'd felt when I first got magic. I knew I should probably wait until we'd been shown around a bit first, though, so even though I didn't need it, I slipped out of bed and crept on silent feet to the showers.

It really had been too long, I thought as I let the hot water run over my body. I mean, it wasn't like I enjoyed having to waste time showering every day, back when I was normal, but after two months without, the simple feeling of the spray drumming against my skin was an unexpected luxury. I availed myself of the various soaps at first, but since they didn't really do anything when my fairy magic ensured I was always clean, I eventually just stood there and boiled myself for half an hour, considering the problems before me.

I wasn't very good at this Fairy Agent business, was I? I hadn't even seen the outfit issue coming. The problem was, well... how was I supposed to make sense of my situation? Nothing about me made sense if I left out the fairies. Hopefully I wouldn't have to worry about explaining that particular problem to anyone else, and I could maybe keep passing off pocketspace as an innate talent, but overall... I guess I needed to start planning things more. Later, when I had an idea of what classes would be like and who everyone was, so I knew what I was planning for.

In my newfound spirit of preparation, I pulled my fairy outfit out of pocketspace, put a school robe on overtop, and snuck out to the common room. It was empty at this hour, of course, but the fireplaces burst from embers into crackling flames as soon as I crossed the threshold. Pulling out my first-grade spellbook, I curled up in an armchair that probably would have been normal-sized for a seventh-year and started reviewing spells. (After skipping past about fifty pages of theory.)

The first one I'd need to know was already handled; the important bit was remembering to say 'Lumos' when I made lights. The second spell we'd learn, assuming I could trust that the order in the book matched the curriculum, was making objects float. Which seemed reasonably useful, and definitely something we ought to know, only...

What fluffing emotion was that supposed to be? I'd have thought 'floaty' feelings were joy and cheerfulness, but I'd already used both of them, and the effects weren't even close. Irritation pushed things away, so maybe? I had enough to practice a bit, so I dropped a pencil on the floor, shoved some irritation through my reluctant wand, and tried to imagine it being pushed up—then dived forward out of my seat to rescue it before it bounced into the fireplace.

After a few more experiments with less power and a safer direction, it didn't look like that was going to work either; 'away' was the only direction I could manage. Further experimentation was going to have to wait; I waved as an older student stumbled into the common room, getting a bleary nod in return before he set up with a book of his own.

Rather more surprising was Ranald's appearance a few minutes later. Granted, he looked like he'd showered and then not bothered combing his hair, but I hadn't expected to see him at all before breakfast with how tired he'd seemed last night.

Given how he glanced about, then slumped into the seat next to me, hastily covering a yawn, maybe I was right to be surprised. "Ross."

"Black," I returned with a grin.

He cringed, then shook his head rapidly. "Ugh, no, let's not do that. Can't hear my own last name any more without...." A sigh, then he started over. "Morning, Alaine."

"Morning, Ranald. Didn't you sleep?"

"Some." He yawned again, then squinted at me suspiciously. "How are you so awake, anyway?"

I shrugged. "I don't need that much sleep. Besides, I was excited to go exploring."

"I guess it's bound to be an odd place, magic castle like this. Better than listening to people debate whether one or both of my parents were secretly Squibs or bastards," he said, grimacing.

"What's that all about, anyway? Is it like that Sirius Black from the papers?"

"Uh, I think so? Mass murdering nutter? Apparently his whole family has been made up of 'Dark Magic enthusiasts' and other horrible tossers for generations, but they were also sort of a big deal, and now they've practically died out, so I get to be part of bloody stupid rumours."

"Hmm..." I hopped off my chair, walking back and forth a little as I studied his face. Not, you know, Katherine levels of personal space invasion, but he did raise his eyebrows and lean back a little. "Nah, you don't really look that much like him. I mean, you've got the eyes and the hair, but your face is kinda...." I waggled a hand.

Ranald frowned, folding his arms. "Is there something wrong with my face, Ross?"

"Nah, not wrong, you're just not very crazy-Black-like. 'S a good thing."

"Oh, thanks." He rolled his eyes. "How'd you get the papers, anyway? You are like me, right?"

"Yeah, I just practically lived in the Alley over the summer. People leave their papers lying around sometimes."

"Must be nice to live that close. I'm over in Bath." He gave me another look as I returned to my seat. "So why green hair?"

"Why not green hair?" I replied, that being, sadly, about the only reason I had to give.

"It does rather stand out."

"Not as much around here, I think. Witchy folk are weird."

"You say that like you think you're not contributing."

"Oi!"

---

Breakfast was a much less extravagant meal than dinner had been, which boded well for my ability to disguise my smaller appetite. Abbott was giving Ranald, Karo and I the slightly longer version of the You-Know-Who explanation, short on gory details but big on how scared he made everyone. It was getting easier to see why Boss wanted someone keeping an eye on the mood around here. Her story also finally explained how Potter got so famous. Admittedly, not dying to a spell that had never failed to kill before was pretty impressive, but it did raise the question of how. Was he just, like, so pure-hearted evil magic couldn't touch him, or something? One of the nearby students brought up the opposite idea, that he had such potential to be a Dark Lord himself that the existing one had gone after him early, but both Abbott and Macmillan shut that down hard, a surge of guilt and embarrassment clear to me if not their target. Wonder what brought that about.

"Alaine." A familiar voice from behind distracted me from the speculation, and I turned to find Isolde looking down at me—if only just. She'd added a small blue clip to her hair, more ornamental than functional considering its length, but her outfit hadn't otherwise changed from yesterday.

"Hi Isolde!"

"Meet me in the library after breakfast. We have research to do."

"Ah, sorry, but the prefects are showing us around after breakfast, where all the classrooms are and such."

She folded her arms with a slight frown, tapping her foot. "Can't you find them any time? You have all weekend."

"Well, maybe, but it'll save a lot of time to have a guide. Which is more time for exploring... and research?" I added as she huffed.

"Fine. Meet me in the library after your 'tour.' You did agree to look into this."

"Don't worry, we'll come!" Katherine chimed in from next to me, already finished her much larger breakfast.

---

I'd expected the tour to be informative; while that was technically true, I almost felt like I was left with more questions than answers. None of the classrooms were close together, and the only one near the Great Hall was History. Astronomy was all the way at the top of the tallest tower in the castle, which made sense, but was a heck of a long climb. And the castle was clearly not designed to make sense to its inhabitants; you'd think there'd be one big central staircase or something, all the rooms and corridors branching off from there, but no, there were dozens of little staircases scattered about instead, some of them unique enough to serve as landmarks but many similar enough to throw you off. Most of them only went up or down a floor or two, leading to paths to and from classrooms that crisscrossed the castle; others didn't always lead to the same place, mysteriously exiting from different doors based on the day of the week, or how fast you climbed, or whether you got stuck in the trick step along the way. One spiral staircase that Abbott pointed out, but didn't make us climb, went up four floors only to terminate in a dead end. And there were apparently secret passages everywhere; the prefects pointed out a couple, but readily admitted that even they probably didn't know half of them.

By the time we were deposited back in the Entrance Hall to go about our own business, I barely had the energy left to climb back up to the library and collapse at Isolde's table. (Katherine, of course, was unfairly unaffected.) "This castle has way too many steps."

"See, wouldn't finding out how your absurdly convenient talent functions have been a better use of your morning?" Isolde said without looking up from the thick tome she was reading.

I half-heartedly bounced a pencil off her forehead; she twitched, grabbed it off the page and threw it back twice as hard. I managed to snatch it back into pocketspace before it could hit me in the face, but it was a near thing.

Katherine frowned at both of us. "Throwing things at people is bad. Unless you're playing Quidditch."

I shrugged; Isolde ignored her entirely and shoved a book at each of us. "This is what I managed to get from the librarian. She said I wouldn't be able to understand anything useful about space expansion charms as a first year, and I couldn't tell her why I really wanted to know, so all I have is overviews and commentaries. Look through them and see if you can find anything that works the way yours does."

I blinked, surprised and relieved at once. I'd more or less given up on keeping it secret, but all the same... "You didn't tell anyone?"

"Of course she didn't."

"Of course I didn't."

The two voices were eerily in sync despite the disparate emotions behind them; Katherine seemed more confused than anything, while Isolde was just looking at me like I was an idiot.

I ducked my head, a traitorous blush rising, and flipped the offered book right-way up so I had something to distract myself with. "Thanks."

The thick books were good for that purpose, at least, less because they were enjoyable reads than because the dry and academic text required most of my attention just to get anything out of. It was obvious why the librarian had been skeptical of handing these to an eleven-year-old; if I'd been more of a swot myself I might have managed better with my advantage in age, but... then I'd be more of a swot.

A spike of irritation from Isolde briefly demanded my attention. "Would you say your 'personal space' is more of a 'fixed-anchor noncompressible extradimensional space', a 'flexible-portal-anchored compressible extradimensional space,' a 'dual-anchor non-dimensional tunnel,' or a 'flexible-portal-anchored non-dimensional space?'"

I stared into Isolde's too-blank eyes for a second, dropped my gaze back to the page I'd been struggling through for a hint, and almost immediately looked back up again helplessly. "I'd say I only understood half of that, but I'd be lying."

Enough animation returned to her expression to allow her a resigned pout. "At least it's not just me," she muttered.

"What about you, Katherine?"

"...Katherine?" After a few seconds of further silence, Isolde shifted in her chair and Katherine jumped.

"Oh, sorry, I got absorbed in this story. I don't think it's very useful, though; it's about a man who died when his expanded trunk collapsed with him inside."

"Okay, I'm not disagreeing with you on the usefulness, but what the bloody hell is something like that doing in a school book?"

"Language, Alaine!" Katherine said with a slight frown.

"Sorry." I didn't want to annoy her too much.

...I mean, even if she was a clingy sports fanatic, she was nice and supportive and... well, whatever.

"Are muggle schools that simple? If there aren't plenty more books that honest in this library, I shall be very disappointed," Isolde said, evidently entirely unbothered by the image as she flipped her book around and pushed it toward Katherine. "Here, these categories he mentions. Do they make any sense to you?"

She diligently studied the page for the better part of a minute, carefully setting her own book aside, before blinking several times and blandly declaring "Not really, no."

"Lovely." Isolde trailed off into a stream of grumbling I couldn't quite make out.

We hadn't made much progress by the time we had to break for lunch; aside from the book of anecdotes, which was of minimal use, the ones we had were clearly written for other scholars, not students. The best we managed was a few references to an 'Undetectable Extension Charm,' which made a bag bigger on the inside and was probably used to make the expanded pockets Isolde was more familiar with.

"Maybe we should come back to this once we've learned more?" These books would probably be more interesting if I could understand them properly, and I wouldn't mind putting off having to explain pocketspace either.

"Maybe," a frustrated Isolde reluctantly admitted. "It's so useful, though..."

"These books are rather difficult," Katherine said, swiftly hiding a yawn.

On average, it was a slightly grumpy group that stacked the books on a return trolley and headed for the entrance. Partway there, though, I spied a familiar head of fluffy black hair at one of the tables and stopped in my tracks.

Katherine was close enough she bumped into me, grabbing my arm to steady herself, and Isolde followed my gaze to the older boy. "Is that... Harry Potter?" she asked in a low voice.

I nodded. He was hunched over a book with his back partly turned; I couldn't tell what he was reading, but his mood was best described as... well. It felt unkind to think it, but he was sulking.

"Why did we stop?" Katherine said, matching Isolde's volume if not her apparent interest.

"Ah, well..." I slipped free from her hands before I could convince myself otherwise. "I'm going to try and cheer him up."

I felt Isolde's incredulity behind me, but she didn't move to follow, and I approached Potter with hesitant steps. The only other people in the area were a group of younger girls I didn't recognize at a further table, who kept sneaking glances his way but were far enough away to maintain plausible deniability. This time, surely, I could get through a conversation without messing something up.

"Hey, Potter!" I called out cheerily once I was close enough to be heard at library volume.

Irritation and anger flared, burning my tongue with my reflexive breath, and he turned his head and snapped "What?" loudly enough to draw the librarian's attention.

Caught in that intense emerald glare, more eyes on me than I was really comfortable with, I fumbled for words and came up short. "S-sorry, this is obviously a bad time sorry for bothering you I'll just go now bye!" Heart pounding and face heating up from my own stupidity, I darted toward the exit. I could feel some of the anger attenuating behind me, a thread of guilt taking its place, but there was no way I could turn around and try again now, that'd be so embarrassing.

Of course, fleeing from my own idiocy was pointless when I brought it with me, so I leaned against the wall a little way outside the library to wait for Katherine and Isolde to catch up. Shite, what was wrong with me? Every single time.

"'Cheer him up?'" I opened my eyes to see Isolde's admittedly-impressive look of skepticism.

"I didn't think he was in that bad a mood..." I mumbled.

"Do you actually know him?"

"Well... sort of. I met him a couple times over the summer, and—"

"And?"

"And, uh, it occurs to me that I probably shouldn't talk about that without asking him."

Isolde raised an eyebrow, but Katherine just nodded like that made perfect sense. "He is supposed to be rather dangerous."

"He is not!" I protested. "He was really nice before, I'm sure he's not usually like this."

"Really?" Katherine was the skeptical one now, while Isolde rubbed her chin thoughtfully.

"Well. If you do find his true self, make sure you tell me."

"Um, okay?"

"I want to know," she offered, like that was the only explanation needed. For her, maybe it was.

 

[AmaiKotori]

Between the tour and research in the morning and repeatedly getting my arse kicked at chess by half my Hufflepuff yearmates in the afternoon, the day slipped away rapidly, and it was Sunday before I really got a chance to explore on my own. I slipped out of the common room before Katherine was even awake, breakfasted on an egg sandwich I had stashed away, and set my internal compass to 'the nearest interesting-looking door.'

Up one stair and down another, clear on the other side of the castle while certain I'd traversed only a fraction of the horizontal distance, I opened the door to yet another empty classroom only to realize this one wasn't actually empty. Sillhouetted by a narrow window, a pair of upper-years were... enthusiastically celebrating the start of term. And quite oblivious to anything but each other's tongue. Out of morbid curiosity, I took a deep breath—candy-sweet, with a hint of apple and just this side of saccharine—then quietly shut the door. Moving on!

There were a lot more classrooms than there seemed to be teachers, I was quickly coming to discover. Either Hogwarts used to have a lot more subjects, or a lot more students. All of them were oddly clean, too, despite being visibly aged and with no other signs of recent use; one had worn diagrams carved into the floor, another stone bleachers I vaguely recognized from music class, but most offered no hint of their original purpose. One seemed very familiar indeed, and it took me a few seconds to place it as the Transfiguration classroom we'd been shown yesterday. The distinctive suits of armour that were supposed to be flanking the door had apparently gone walkies.

...maybe in a more literal sense than usual. The living portraits certainly didn't have the decency to stay in their own frames. I mean, I couldn't really blame them, I'd get bored too, but I decided I should probably pay more attention to less mobile landmarks.

Two floors and more walking than I'd have liked later, I pulled at the indented handle of a heavily-worn closet door, only to find it locked. That seemed odd enough to potentially be actually interesting, so I ducked down to give it another look. There didn't seem to be a keyhole, just two fist-sized holes in the wood tilted downward. Not enough to let me see in, either, both terminating in darkness as I peered up at them. I pushed my fingers into one, feeling about for some sort of hidden catch, but while they definitely didn't go all the way through the door, they were smooth and featureless on the inside... until the wood twitched, swelled, wrinkled up and then sneezed, violently ejecting my hand.

Stifling a giggle, I inspected my hand just to make sure nothing had ended up on it, and very nearly missed the doors silently yawning open in front of me. The hail of random supplies bursting out to surround me definitely caught my attention, though, and I barely had time for a panicked yelp before they were on me.

I ducked away from a broom beating at my head, sidestepped a falling bucket, twisted around an oncoming mop. A pair of short poles with a braided rope between them darted back and forth, and I realized too late that they were herding me toward the door. The broom had gotten behind me and swept my legs out from under me with a flourish; I landed on my hands, fairy-born grace sparing me a painful fall, only to have the mop tangle my feet together in midair with the strings of its business end. The thought that it wouldn't have worked on anyone bigger was almost as annoying as my immediate predicament, and I latched onto the floating broom with one hand, batting away the circling bucket with frustration-fueled swipes of the other.

I recognized the distraction for what it was only when a hidden roll of bandages hit my back and swiftly bound my arms to my sides, the trailing end cutting off my curses as the bucket covered my head. Wriggling in vain, I was steadily dragged into the open maw until a muffled thud from the entrance cut off even the faintest trace of light.

---

I couldn't say how long passed after I tired myself out struggling. The animated implements had gone still, content to hold me in place as long as I didn't try to escape. The inside of the closet was pitch-black and silent, smelling mostly of dust and very faintly of cleaning products, and I could at least take comfort in the fact that there was no smell of blood or rot. It wasn't like even a witchy school would have a closet that literally ate people, right? I'd be happier if I could call for help, but the bandage roll had stuffed my mouth full of fabric as soon as I'd tried. Really not how I'd been hoping to spend my morning... although I figured I'd reserve judgement until I got out. Depending on how this adventure ended, I might be able to look back on it and laugh. (Once, y'know, I had my mouth free to laugh again.)

Bloody carnivorous closet. All I did was tickle it a little! I didn't even mean to! It could have at least had the decency to give me a chance to apologize first before eating me!

There was a sudden shift in the air around me, some undescribable event that left me feeling faintly nauseous, then the bucket left my head, a bright ray of light left me temporarily blind, and I was ejected, spinning wildly, into the corridor to land in a woozy heap.

"Merlin's balls, that's a new one."

"Language, Ron! ...Are you alright?"

"Can't we leave the Slytherins to their own prefects?"

I groaned, blinking up at the sources of two unfamiliar voices. "'M a Hufflepuff," I muttered, trying to bring their faces into focus.

"Why's your hair green, then? Some slimy snake get you with something? If you need to get them back, we know people." A lanky ginger peered down at me, a scowl on his freckled face.

"Oh, here, let me. Finite incantatem." The girl crouching next to me, a cloud of bushy brown curls haloing her face, frowned lightly as her spell failed to accomplish anything. "Recta forma. No?"

"Uh, it's my natural colour," I said, finally willing my stomach into quiescence.

"Wait, Alaine?"

The third voice was completely unexpected, a sudden cloud of butterflies determinedly undoing the effort I'd just put in. I'd never been so glad my fairy magic kept me presentable regardless of the situation. Blinking rapidly, I sat up and looked at the boy who'd apparently been trailing a little behind the other two.

"Hullo, Potter. I got eaten by a closet." Wait, no, stupid brain, why is that what you're leading with? Trying to ward off the burning feeling in my cheeks through will alone, I shook my head rapidly. "Uh, I mean, sorry for bothering you yesterday."

"Oh." He paused, taken aback, a little of the guilt I'd noticed last time creeping back in. "It's fine, I shouldn't have snapped at you. People have just been..." Trailing off with another scowl, he took a moment to push away his growing anger, which I took advantage of to regain my feet. "So, eaten by a closet?"

"Oh, yeah, it was... uh..." I glanced around, the corridor I'd been dumped in not even remotely resembling the one I'd been plucked from. "...somewhere. Tickled it by accident and it pulled me in and didn't let me go for, like, hours."

"I haven't seen that one before," the girl who'd probably look better after a rain shower said, thoughtful and slightly curious. "I suppose if it only triggers when you bother it, it wouldn't be well-known. I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, Gryffindor prefect. This is Ronald Weasley, and I see you already know Harry. You said your hair was naturally green? I didn't think that happened even among magical-born children. Where does it come from?"

"You know, I was wondering that myself, but I figured it was just a wizard thing," Potter added before I could even begin to come up with a plausible explanation.

"Nah, it's definitely weird," his ginger friend said.

Bugger. I could try to dodge the question, but with all three of them being curious upper-years, I didn't know what would even be a believable lie, and I didn't want to lie to the boy who'd saved me from Dementors anyway. (At least, no more than what was necessary to convince him I wasn't spying on him, and he had no reason to suspect that as long as it was a secondary objective.) Besides, I could trust him to keep a secret, right? And if he was friends with these two, they were probably safe as well...

"Uh, promise not to tell anyone?"

That piqued at least a little more curiosity from all of them, but Granger gave a quick "Of course," and the other two nodded along.

I crossed my fingers behind my back for luck. "I'm part-fairy. It's from that."

Granger blinked rapidly for a second, then leaned forward with sudden enthusiasm. "Really? How does that work?"

Weasley recoiled instead, leaving a bemused Potter in the middle, and I relaxed a little at the latter's lack of reaction. The former was less blasé, only slightly-exaggerated revulsion fueling his response. "No one wants to know that, Hermione!"

"Oh honestly, Ronald, it's a perfectly valid question! I'm sure the mechanics aren't as bad as you're obviously thinking, and the techniques used to mingle seemingly incompatible bloodlines could be useful for some of Professor Binns's essays, or even for extra credit with Professor Snape depending on the method."

"Snape isn't going to give you anything but detention for bringing that up!"

"Ah..." I waved a hand to get their attention, to no avail. Potter was already getting irritated again, and for once I wanted a meeting with him to end without me making a fool of myself.

"Professor Snape, Ron, and I know he marks unfairly, but he's still a teacher, not to mention there's... you know."

Oho? So Professor Snape had interesting secrets... on the other hand, I'd only met him once, and I was already scared of drawing his attention. Maaaybe we'd table that one.

"I don't care what Dumbledore says, that git doesn't deserve any respect."

"Would you two give it a rest?" Potter snapped, stepping between the two as his anger flared, only to wither into more guilt as Granger turned her unimpressed look on him instead.

Alaine to the rescue! Before she could start up again, I tapped her on the shoulder. "Um, sorry, but I don't actually know how it happened. I'm basically muggleborn even with this, didn't know about the fairy thing until earlier this year." Technically true, right?

"Oh. That's unfortunate, but—"

Weasley's muttered "No it's not" just got her to raise her voice to talk over him.

"—I can see why you'd want to keep it quiet."

"Yeah, especially with You-Know-Who back from the dead and all." Now then, let's see... faint surprise from all three of them, lowly simmering anger from Granger and Weasley, relief from Potter... what?

Granger interrupted my inspection before I could puzzle that one out. "Well, yes, but it's not just them. There are a lot of people in wizarding society who think where you came from matters more than what you can do." Speaking from experience? "And that's not even getting into how they treat house-elves!"

I wanted to ask what house-elves were, but swiftly-growing apprehension from both the other two gave me just enough warning to snap my mouth shut. The heartfelt gratitude from Potter as I met his eyes was nearly enough to bring my blush back. What the heck kind of rant had I just dodged?

"So, uh, I should probably be finding my other friends; at least one of them is going to be wondering where I disappeared to."

"Oh, would you like me to show you back to the Entrance Hall?" Granger was surprisingly solicitous for someone I'd just met; maybe it was a prefect thing.

I was trying to get on Potter's good side, though, not borrow his friends without asking. "It's fine, thanks; I was exploring anyway when I got eaten, so I might as well finish getting used to finding my own way around the place." Plus this conversation had been going fairly well and I wanted to quit while I was ahead. I took a step back, clasping my hands behind my back and ducking my head a bit. "It was nice meeting you two, and, uh, hopefully I'll see you around?" I directed that second part at Potter, earning a feeling of slight surprise and a faint, short-lived smile.

"Er, sure. See you."

It wasn't much, but I'd take it! I went one way before my face could betray my eagerness, they went the other, and as soon as I ducked around a nearby corner I stopped and pricked my ears. Eavesdropping was a spy thing to do, right? And maybe I could find out why they were in this place I didn't recognize at all.

"Looks like your fan club's got another member, mate." Erk. Potter's internal reaction to Weasley's joking suggestion was not positive. Gah, I hoped I didn't actually come across that way.

"Either that or she fancies you." No, don't say that, that's even worse!

"Ron!" Granger was practically hissing. "We're not in second year any more, that is completely inappropriate!" Yes, please do shut him up.

"Please don't remind me of second year..." That was Potter, feeling more embarrassed than I was.

...I was already regretting this plan. Next time, I was aiming to meet him without Weasley around.

---

"Fancy meeting you here."

I looked up from my book to find a bleary-looking Ranald dropping heavily into a nearby armchair. At... a quarter past five in the morning.

"Morning. Is this going to be a thing?"

He gave a one-armed shrug. "Probably. I don't usually sleep well."

Okay, I was curious, but there are some questions you just don't ask. "Nervous about the first day of class?"

"Eh, not really? First day was always pretty dull as far as lessons went back in normal school. I doubt wizards are much different there. Are you?" His half-closed eyes suggested he wasn't too invested in the answer, but I considered it anyway.

"Maybe a little?" Mostly because I still hadn't figured out how to fake that damned hovering charm. And transfiguration, I didn't even want to think about that.

"You're already reading ahead," he pointed out. "I'd wager that puts you ahead of half the class, myself included. You'll do fine."

"Yeah, I guess." I'd be a lot more confident if I were a real witch.

"So did you find anything interesting out exploring?"

...right, I had told him I'd be doing that, hadn't I? I squinted at him suspiciously, the amused anticipation he was hiding putting me on guard. "Maybe-living suits of armour, more abandoned classrooms than I could count, a music room, a famous Potter, and no fewer than three shameless upper-year couples."

Ranald raised an eyebrow. "Well, older boys and girls are weird like that."

"Seriously, there ought to be a rule. Like drinking! No snogging before five o'clock!" (No matter how tasty the feeling was.)

That startled a laugh out of him. "And why would you know about what the rules for drinking are?"

"Eh, one of my mums was always going on about it." I realized a little late that my answer might invite more uncomfortable questions, but fortunately it seemed he wasn't going to ask. I supposed he'd understand, what with his not-sleeping thing, whatever it was.

"Anyway, are you sure you didn't leave anything out? Because I could have sworn I overheard something about an unusual closet..."

I huffed as I spied the smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. He had known already, the brat. "Fine, yes, I was also eaten by a closet and wasted hours tied up in the dark before it spat me out. I'd like to see you do better after annoying the local geography."

"Well, firstly, I'd aim to not annoy the building we're living in in the first place, and secondly, I don't think the inside of a building counts as 'geography.'"

"Have you seen the size of this place? I'm not at all convinced it isn't bigger on the inside." And I knew that was possible, too.

"I was on the tour with everyone else. No matter how little sense it makes, it isn't geography..."

By the time we got to breakfast, I'd completely failed to get any more studying done. But for better or worse, I'd also completely forgotten to be nervous about classes.

 

[AmaiKotori]

We Hufflepuffs made our way in a muddly huddle towards our first class of the day. Somehow, I found myself near the front of the group, due mostly to not hesitating at the intersections, next to Katherine, due probably to the fact that she had the longest legs of anyone here. The suits of armour were back in place; I half-expected them to drop their halberds to bar the way until we identified ourselves or something, but they remained suspiciously motionless.

Either schools hadn't changed much in the last hundred years or witchy folk kept up with normal folk in at least some areas, because the layout of the room wasn't that different from what I was used to; it just had nicer furniture. I immediately headed for the second-last row, picking a desk a little off from centre.

"Why are we sitting back here?" Katherine didn't hesitate in taking the seat next to me, but her curiosity was real enough as she leaned over to whisper in my ear.

"'Cause it's better not to get the teacher's attention before you know what you're doing, but all the way in the back makes it look like you're trying to hide." I also had, uh, rather more specific reasons to worry about not knowing what I was doing than usual.

"Oh, I see." Katherine nodded a couple times, her lips moving silently, before both of us were distracted by the teacher's entrance.

Professor McGonagall strode into the room with back straight and mien stern, black hair in a severe bun without a strand out of place and unornamented work robes somehow still looking like aristocratic finery. Stopping behind her desk, she took a moment to look us over.

"Welcome to Transfiguration. You will find it one of most useful and versatile branches of magic, and provided you pay attention to your lessons, your life as a witch or wizard will be greatly eased. However, it is also one of the most difficult and dangerous branches, and I will not tolerate any messing about. You will listen when I tell you not to do something, or you will leave and not come back. Am I understood?"

As the class chorused their agreement and I practically choked on the taste of flour, I was very glad I'd chosen to try and avoid attention today.

The theory we opened the lesson with was one thing; it was like some bizarre form of maths, quantifying things that had no right being quantified just to calculate the difficulty of turning one thing into another thing before you even got started. The magic itself seemed to be a heavily mental discipline, relying on your ability to visualize the change you wanted, with the words and wand-waving nothing more than a trigger to start the process. And after going through all that, she deposited a matchstick on each of our desks and told us to try turning it into a needle.

I sent a glare of what-do-you-mean-we-have-nothing-to-worry-about at Ranald, down at the end of the row, and received a shrug of not-my-problem back.

I was not prepared for this. I had no idea what emotion could work here, and I'd already experimented with over half the ones I'd gathered. And it would probably look suspicious if I did something completely off-theme for what the spell was supposed to do, but at the same time, not trying at all would be even more suspicious.

Katherine was already poking away at her matchstick, her enthusiastic casting producing no noticeable results, so I took a deep breath and tried to push away my worries. What might work? Anticipation? Making sure to recite the spell this time, I pushed some down my resisting wand, feeling it sink into the light wood of the matchstick, and tried to imagine it turning into a needle. Nothing happened.

Actually nothing, which was just weird. It was the first time I hadn't gotten a noticeable effect from casting on a target that accepted it, so maybe I was actually on the right track and just needed more practice? As long as I wasn't doing any worse than Katherine....

The class ended with only a quarter of a needle among us, and that was being generous to Baldric's pointy stick. I'd gotten what I'd come to think of as 'unacceptable target' reactions from a few more emotions, made it wobble with a tiny bit of disdain and immediately pinned it to the table with a finger to avoid accusations of 'messing around,' and gone back to fruitlessly filling the wood with anticipation. And after lunch, we had to deal with the school's other, even scarier black-haired martinet.

---

The Potions classroom was cold and dry, the ingredients in the glass-fronted cupboards all around the walls offering a bit of the comforts of 'home' in the face of our upcoming trial. We were sharing this one with the Ravenclaws, but as we didn't really know each other yet, we pretty much just split the classroom between us. Unsurprisingly, I ended up sharing one of the two-person desks with Katherine, who was much more enthusiastic about this class than the last; less so, she'd actually taken the lead in picking a desk one row from the back.

"Ooh, I hope we get to make something ourselves today. Dad's only ever let me help." She bounced in her seat a little, repeatedly straightening her parchment and shuffling her quill around, while I watched warily for the professor's entrance.

"That's more than I can say. I can cook a little, but this looks a lot more complicated."

"It is! It's kind of, like, um, putting together a really detailed puzzle." Her hands danced fitfully in the air as she tried to explain, grasping at shadows. "It's scattered and nonsensical at first, but once it fits together you start to see the patterns, and then it finally makes perfect sense and it's really pretty!"

Her excitement was a bit of a balm for my nerves—if nothing else, I had an experienced partner to fall back on—but the morning's results had not been encouraging, and Professor Snape was not a reassuring figure.

All the same. I had made a promise, hadn't I? I'd do my best.

The professor entered the classroom in near-perfect silence, conversation dying away in a wave from the back of the room as he swept past, until he reached the front and slowly, ominously turned around to face the class—specifically, the two Ravenclaw boys obliviously chattering away in a front corner. Raising a hand, he snapped his fingers with a sound like a whipcrack. The whole class flinched, the boys' heads snapped up to meet his dead-eyed glare, and two strangled shrieks chased the dying echoes around the classroom.

"Two points from Ravenclaw." Silence greeted the bland announcement, no one daring to protest, and he continued in a low, tightly-controlled voice, almost forcing us to hold our breath to hear. "You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potion-making, not to socialize. Those of you who think that waving a wand about is the height of magic can leave your foolish delusions at the door."

I would have breathed a sigh of relief, but I didn't dare interrupt.

"Those of you with the aptitude will learn here the ingredients of life and death, strength and weakness, truth and lies. Those of you with sense will learn to keep yourselves alive in the face of dangers more subtle than many wizards can grasp. Those of you with neither... will learn that regret is often the only cure for idiocy." He swept his gaze across the class, meeting everyone's eyes in turn; I shivered as he came to me. He wasn't acting, that was the thing; I mean, sure, he was playing it up a little, probably everyone did when they gave a speech, but the apathy toward the class, the resignation, and the thread of genuine reverence for his art were real. Real and chilling. If we wanted to succeed in this class...

"Do try not to be part of the latter group."

...yeah. That.

The professor started out by taking us through a brief explanation of ingredient preparation methods, from the desired consistency of shredded herbs ("Did you somehow hear 'crush to paste' when I said 'shred,' Weirbrook?") through to the proper use of a scale ("Kindly tell me you are not incapable of basic arithmetic, Bennett.") and the timing for stewing invertebrates ("You will find the expected colour of the broth familiar from a mirror, Ross.").

I did my best to keep my head down and my examples within the acceptable range. It wasn't just the constant needling; I knew he had some kind of important secret, and if this was the kind of person he was in public, how much worse might that be? Although Granger had been talking like it was supposed to make up for how he behaved... I wasn't sure I could trust that. She seemed a little too nice, too willing to give people the benefit of the doubt. Katherine, on the other hand, was blithely following his directions, nodding along with the warnings until he finally told her to keep her head still before she lost sight of her work. (I half suspected he was just digging for something to criticize.)

After an introduction that might have been considered sufficient if you had superhuman information absorption abilities, he returned to the front of the room and set a piece of chalk to dancing with a jab of his wand, the animated implement writing out a recipe on the board behind his back.

"The first potion you will prepare is a cure for boils. While it may seem underwhelming now, no doubt you will find it useful in your ecdysis."

Our what? Judging from the offended reaction of the one Ravenclaw boy who didn't feel as lost as the rest of us, I decided to count it as another point against him.

"Well? What are you waiting for?"

The class scrambled into motion, salvaging successfully prepared ingredients and jumping for replacements for destroyed ones. I compared my attempts to Katherine's, picking the best for each, and sighed at the ratio.

If there was one good thing to be said about Potions, it was that I could actually do it without any fakery or cheating. The recipe didn't seem to care about what kind of magic I had, only that I was magical at all. Granted, we were working together, but I did my part, and did my best, and made it out of the classroom in one piece.

I also waited until we were definitely, positively, absolutely out of earshot before complaining. "Way worse than Professor McGonagall."

Katherine was practically skipping next to me, blissfully unaffected by the atmosphere in the classroom. "Why? We actually got to make a potion! And it worked! He said it was acceptable!"

He'd also said 'acceptable' in the tone most would say 'manure,' but there was no need to ruin her fun, I supposed... "You didn't get the feeling he hated the class and everyone in it?"

She frowned, slowing her pace a bit, and tilted her head to the side. "Not really? His comments were very straightforward, but no one complained."

There was an indignant squawk from behind us, Sachie wringing his hands as he followed. "Because he's terrifying, not because we liked it!"

Katherine hummed a little, turning back to me. "Are you scared of Isolde?"

"No," I grumped, shoving my hands in my pockets. "Isolde doesn't try to hurt people. Professor Snape is a git on purpose."

"Complaining would just make things worse." Sachie's slender shoulders slumped as Katherine gave another wordless hum. "Please don't. You'll probably get by fine anyway, he hardly had anything bad to say about you. The rest of us will manage."

Katherine was contemplative as we headed to History of Magic, but if she could actually enjoy Potions despite the professor, I decided to leave well enough alone.

The less said about the disappointment that was History class, the better. You'd think a professor who literally didn't let death stop him from teaching the subject would be passionate, engaged, motivated... but apparently the only thing that kept him going was inertia, because his ghostly state was by far the most interesting thing in the lecture. I did my best to take notes, but it was better than Potions only in that the worst danger was falling asleep in class. (And I wasn't sure Professor Binns would even notice that; Ranald seemed to get away with it just fine.)

Given the particular professors the day had featured, I wasn't really surprised they gave us homework on the first day. Looked like I'd be getting that quill practice I still needed sooner rather than later... well, the fewer things about me that stood out from real witches, the better, and horribly sloppy writing was definitely one.

Halfway through the short essay on Transfiguration 'maths' we'd been assigned, I remembered I'd yet to confirm whether I was even on the right track with my attempts in that class, cursed, and had to apologize to Katherine and Rose, even if the latter only seemed to care about the noise and Karo was just amused.

Ugh. I needed materials, time, privacy, and fuel, and most of those were in short supply. Looked like I might have to risk wandering around after curfew....

---

My initial plans were foiled when Ranald got to the common room before me the next morning, half-closed eyes twitching in my direction before he gave a short nod. I couldn't tell exactly how awake he even was, but while he probably wouldn't snitch if I snuck out, it would make him suspicious. Resigned to a probably-fruitless morning, I dropped into my usual armchair and pulled out my Transfiguration textbook. Maybe all that theory would have a hint in it somewhere, at least.

I barely tasted my breakfast that morning; I was too preoccupied with scanning the Great Hall for the rarer emotions I hadn't tested yet and pulling in trickles of each. The thing about crowds like this was that people tended to... align, I supposed, with the people around them. One grumpy person can drag a whole group down, right? And if they don't, chances are good they'll be pulled up instead. So crowds were great for gathering the prevailing emotions, but anything else took a fair bit of focus to find and isolate.

Charms was one we shared with Slytherin. I got a friendly-ish nod from Isolde as we filed in and a sourer look when I pulled my textbook out of pocketspace. I couldn't exactly blame her for being envious—it was really useful—but still, she seemed to be the only one who took particular note of it. Witches were weird, it was just a fact of life.

Professor Flitwick was by far the cheeriest teacher we'd had yet. He was nearly as short as the students, too; I had to wonder if he was fairy-touched himself, but didn't dare ask in case I was wrong. Probably wasn't, I supposed, else what would they need me for? We went over maybe a quarter-hour of theory before he set us straight to practicing, and the classroom was soon covered in a dozen shades of glittering light. Things would get harder later, I was sure, but for now I could rest easy in one spellcasting class, at least as far as the practicals went. The theory was... extensive, as became clear after we'd had our fun and went back to studying, but while it was even more complicated than Transfiguration in its own way, it was also less bizarre.

While Professor Sprout was our Head of House, we hadn't seen much of her until we showed up in Herbology along with the Gryffindors. Probably busy with the start of term; seemed plausible. Herbology was, unsurprisingly, not held in the castle, but in the first building of an extensive greenhouse complex on the grounds. The other buildings were for older students; magical plants were still plants, so it made sense to keep the more dangerous ones separate, since most of them spread the same way as normal ones. (Most of them. Pale Ivy would grab a person that brushed up against it and deposit a tiny sprout on their skin, growing slowly enough to appear harmless while numbing them against pain and increasing their physical strength in a pseudo-symbiotic relationship that ended when it spread far enough to change stages and paralyze them entirely while it took root around their soon-to-be-corpse. A nightmare for every dream in that book, seriously.)

Anyway, our first class was just really basic gardening stuff. Digging up plants without damaging the roots, proper application of fertilizer, watering, and so on. The smell could have been better, but we had solid gloves, even if mine were scuffed and had a thin spot near the wrist I needed to be careful of, and both Katherine and I knew this stuff already, so we had time to chat with Euan as we worked.

"I haven't really seen you since the Sorting. How's life in Gryffindor?" The professor was pretty tolerant of chatter as long as we didn't stop working, so while I didn't let my voice carry too far, I didn't exactly have to whisper either.

Euan jumped as I addressed him, a clump of dirt falling from his trowel. "Oh! Um, I'm getting used to it? It's very loud, and some of the upper years like to cause trouble, so you have to be careful, but I... I want to get used to it, so."

"I'm sure you can! You made it in, after all." Katherine gave him a bright smile, and he jerked backward seemingly on reflex, but she didn't try to grab him this time. Probably because we were all knuckle-deep in dirt and worse.

"Um. Yes. Sorry."

Katherine didn't seem to get why he was apologizing, so I stepped in before that could turn any more awkward. "So who are the people you have to be careful of? Should we be worried, too?"

"It... sounds like it's mostly Lee Jordan and Fred and George Weasley." He ducked his head, feeling guilty like he shouldn't have said that, then shook it rapidly and looked back up. "I don't think they're bad people! They just... like jokes. And they're very... creative."

So... when Weasley said they 'knew people,' like they had Mob hitmen on call, he was just talking about his older brothers?

"Hm. They sound interesting." Katherine nodded to herself as she poked around the roots of a clump of wide-leafed stalks I couldn't quite place.

"And... a little scary. But they are, yes."

"Running off to Hufflepuff girls for comfort already, Abercrombie? I know you fit in with them, but you could at least help out your actual House." The sneering, round-faced brunet on his other side sidled close enough that no one else would overhear his muttering, but Euan still flinched and glanced around.

"Fawley. Sorry."

I scowled at the little brat, but he didn't seem to care. "Oi, what's wrong with talking with friends?"

He looked down his nose at me—he shouldn't be able to do that, damn it—and sighed. "Talking, nothing, but helping is another matter. The House Cup only gets awarded to one House. Besides, if Abercrombie wants to shape up, hanging around your sort isn't going to help any."

"Our sort? People who are good at Herbology?" Katherine tilted her head in guileless query, her perfectly timed innocence enough that I poorly concealed a laugh at Fawley's expense.

He flushed, clenching his trowel harder than was strictly necessary as he stabbed it into the soft earth. "Hufflepuffs, you... you little girl." Given that Katherine was visibly taller than him, that only made me laugh harder, and he whirled and stalked off. "Come on, Abercrombie."

Euan shot an apologetic look our way before trailing after his housemate, and I controlled my mirth in time to notice Katherine's uncharacteristic frown and simmering frustration.

"What's wrong?"

She turned back to her work abruptly, mouthing something soundlessly, and I was about to give up and leave it be when she spoke up. "Why did he get angry?"

"You mean when he saw us with Euan, or..."

"When I asked him what he meant! It was just a question, and none of the reasons people usually don't like questions fit."

"Oh, ah, I'm pretty sure he thought you were mocking him, pretending you didn't know the answer."

"But I didn't—" Her face scrunched up as the frustration threatened to boil over, and I hurried to cut her off.

"I know that, but he didn't. Also, you kind of implied he was bad at Herbology. It's fine, though, he deserved to be mocked."

"Oh. If... if you say so." She fiddled with her trowel as the turbulent emotions subsided, poking holes in the dirt in a meaningless pattern. "It makes more sense than him calling me a little girl. He's even littler."

I snickered. "I know, right?"

"It would make more sense if he'd said that to you, but even then it wouldn't be very nice."

"I'll get bigger eventually!"

---

We had Astronomy that night at midnight, which meant a longer break than usual in the afternoon so people could nap if they wanted to. Since I didn't need to, I finally had a chance to slip away and play with the rarer emotions I'd been gathering since morning. A matchstick wasn't the easiest thing to come across in witch-land, so I was holed up in an empty classroom with a pencil instead. (Wasn't like I had any other use for them here.) Of course, since it was bigger, it'd be harder to transfigure, but I just needed to see if I could get some reaction.

I started with disdain, since I still had some stored from the first night and I'd had to abort my last try. The pencil wobbled, lifted off the desk, and floated in the air for a bit before dropping. I was torn between cheering and smacking my forehead; I'd been trying to work out how to do just that the other day, and now I had a solution to entirely the wrong problem. Grumbling to myself, I filed away the information for later and moved on.

A touch of anger opened a crack along one side. That seemed less than safe to experiment with further; I didn't want to run out of pencils. The only panic I had was wasted to no effect; whatever that did, it wouldn't work on an inanimate object. A jab of envy tugged it closer. Potentially useful, if difficult to gather in usable quantities.

I almost thought my eyes were playing tricks on me when it suddenly shifted, going from pencil to not-a-pencil so briefly I couldn't tell what it had been before it snapped back. Cautiously, I gathered a larger amount of discontent before letting it flood into the wood, focusing harder on the needle it was supposed to become (a knitting needle, maybe, at this size?), and the pencil swelled up before once more becoming not-a-pencil, fuzzy and not quite right, and then popping back into pencil shape—but now painted silver instead of orange.

I punched the air with my free hand, cheering to no one in particular, reached for more discontent to practice further—

And then I ran out of fuel.

 

[AmaiKotori]

Astronomy was alright. Basically just a bunch of memorization and a bit of maths, it sounded like, and we got to look at a near-untainted night sky, almost all the lights from Hogsmeade and the castle itself hidden below the lip of the tower. Could be a lot worse. (I could have done without the laughs for my stupid ugly telescope, but it wasn't like I hadn't seen that coming when I bought the bloody thing.)

Morning brought with it our first class with the government inspector fairy-wannabe. And yes, she was still dressed in that hideous pink-over-black outfit, so I felt entirely justified in the thought. Maybe on a little girl it'd be tolerable, but even Isolde would probably look bad in that. The whole year was together for this one, but we didn't have much time to chat.

Right on time, the professor stood from her chair and addressed the class in that syrupy tone she'd used before she turned into a political mouthpiece at the opening feast. "Good morning, class!"

I murmured a lackadaisical 'Good morning' in return, accompanied by less than a quarter of the class. I shared an amused glance with Karo on my other side, one of the only others who'd replied. Honestly, these kids should be just out of primary, surely they hadn't forgotten how to mumble insincere greetings at an overly-enthusiastic teacher already.

...wait, did witches even have primary? Now that I thought about it, I couldn't remember any of my witchy friends mentioning school...

Before I could continue that train of thought, the professor decided she wasn't going to stand for our lack of enthusiasm, waving a chiding finger as she leaned forward slightly over the desk. "Now, now, children, that won't do at all. Manners are the foundation of society. Perhaps your other professors have been lax on the matter, but when I greet you, I should like you to reply 'Good morning, Professor Umbridge.' Once more: Good morning, class!"

There were a few more shared glances, but a poorly-coordinated muddle of 'Good morning, Professor Umbridge' eventually made its way out of every mouth.

Feeling far more satisfied by that than the feat warranted, she straightened and clasped her hands behind her back. "Now, I'm sure you are all excited to learn. Perhaps you have heard false rumours of dangerous times and frightening events. However, I assure you that you are in no danger in this classroom. You are here to learn how to protect yourself in the incredibly unlikely event that you are confronted with a situation you cannot simply leave to a nearby adult. As such, you will have no need of your wands in this room." She gave a pointed look to the students who already had theirs out, ignoring the building discontent that I desperately began sucking in before it could fade. (Baldric's was particularly potent—unsurprisingly so, perhaps, given his professed love of stabby things. Maybe he'd been hoping he could use this class to practice.)

"I trust you all have a copy of Defensive Magical Theory?"

There was a forest of nods, and another frown from the professor.

"I should like to hear your voices when I ask you a question, children."

"Yes, Professor Umbridge." Most of us caught on quick enough after that. She really did remind me of some of my more annoying primary teachers.

"Good. Open your books and start reading from page 5, 'Basics for Beginners.' I should not be hearing any chatter."

And that was that. We read in silence, our collective fidgeting steadily increasing as the two-hour class wore on, Professor Umbridge sitting at the head of the class in equally-silent satisfaction. I didn't know how she wasn't going mad from boredom, given that she wasn't even doing paperwork half the time, just sweeping her gaze back and forth over the dull tableau.

The book itself wasn't exactly interesting, either. I mean, it's not like the advice was bad; I already had a very similar formula in my repertoire.

(See Dementor + No Harry Potter in the immediate vicinity = run for your life.)

But the author, while giving practical if perhaps overly cautious guidelines for when you suspect you're in danger, apparently thought that his young audience would be less intimidated by the subject material if they were bored out of their minds by interminable tangents and more verbose language than you could find in Magical Theory. Professor Binns was still worse, but not by much.

There was a great collective sigh of relief as she rose from her seat to end the lesson, a few books being very audibly slammed shut. Her wide smile twitched a little, but she managed to keep it in place. "Well, I hope you are all feeling better now that you've started to understand how the Ministry keeps you safe. I want you to remember that I am here to help, and you can always come to me if you hear people spreading unconscionable rumours of Dark wizards in order to frighten people. Rest assured that I will soon set them straight."

Well, that confirmed that she was one of the doubters, anyway. Wonder if Boss'd be interested in that tidbit.

"Now, I'm sure you are all eager to get to lunch, so run along. Miss Ross, though, if you would stay a minute."

My heart sank, but unless I wanted to make things worse, all I could say was "Yes, Professor Umbridge."

"I'll wait with you," Katherine said; I sent her a grateful smile despite wondering if it was really a good idea, but the professor took the decision out of my hands.

"You may wait outside the door, Miss Hedges."

Her face fell, but I tapped her shoulder and eased her in the direction of our departing classmates. "It's fine, I'll see you in a bit."

"Well, alright." Still a little uncertain, she left, closing the heavy door behind her.

I approached the desk at the head of the room, flinching despite myself when Professor Umbridge briefly jabbed her wand in my direction.

"Hm, as I thought. You have a very distinctive hair colour, Miss Ross—I noticed at the Sorting as well—but it's not charmed, is it?" I could feel her smug suspicion, certain she'd found something wrong, but it was hidden behind a nearly-flawless mask of saccharine concern.

Now, there were two essential rules for dealing with government inspectors. I'd sort of gotten a feeling for them on my own when I was younger, but Dad #3 had helped me formalize them. Rule Number One: Don't answer questions they're not asking. Anything extra you say can and will be used against you. "No, ma'am." Because she wasn't being a Professor right now, was she?

She narrowed her eyes a little, but it wasn't like I wasn't still being polite. "It is your natural colour, then?"

"Yes, ma'am." Don't ask the obvious question, don't ask the—

"And what blood resulted in such an unnatural colouring?"

That was an even worse question! Bloody hell, was she really sharp or just really lucky? Because, see, Rule Number Two? Control what you say, but don't ever outright lie, because the government is a lot bigger than you and utterly without mercy. They will find out. I dropped my gaze, clasping my hands and letting some of my nervousness show in the hope she'd show a little tact. With her focus on manners, it seemed a fair shot. "I'd... rather not say, ma'am."

The satisfaction of being proved right mixed with disgust and fear behind her mask, and I had no idea what to do with it. I'd seen the disgust more than once now, but what about just knowing I had non-human blood could scare her? She kept it off her face, in any event, looking down at me with an understanding smile that was probably meant to be soft but came across as almost predatory. "I'm sure you would, dear, but as your teacher, I need to be aware of these things. In wizarding society, there are important considerations that you may not yet be familiar with."

Ugh. Dared I lie outright? Fairy meant possibly being connected to Boss, but saying anything else risked being caught out, and fairy was probably one of the more harmless options. Goblins had apparently tried to kill witchy folk regularly before they took over the banking system, according to Professor Binns's opening lecture. Other creatures that a witch might theoretically share blood with... were not coming to mind at the moment. I'd spent the summer reading about plants, damn it!

Taking a deep breath, I met her eyes. I'd just have to be very careful around her. "As long as it's just you, Professor... I'm part fairy, or so I'm told. I didn't know 'til I found out I was magic." Hopefully she'd think one of the other Professors told me, or it was in my Hogwarts letter or something.

"I see." The fear didn't change, but nor did it abate much, which meant it wasn't fairies in particular she was scared of... just people who weren't perfectly human? "You already understand, I think, that half-breeds are not well-received among civilized witches and wizards. It isn't your fault, my dear, but you will need to be on your very best behaviour, and not just in my class. I don't want to hear about you causing trouble for the other students or professors, either; you'd only be giving them an excuse to treat you poorly." She gave me a searching look, waiting for my ritual affirmation before continuing. "And that includes encouraging other troublemakers. I heard you were at the Ministry this summer to speak on behalf of Mr. Potter."

My eyebrows shot up, my mouth falling halfway open before I managed to get it under control. Why did she even know that? "I, uh, yes, ma'am?"

She leaned forward on the desk with a stern look, her tone turning clipped and level. "Mr. Potter is a dangerous liar who has been spreading hurtful rumours of Dark wizards coming back to life, rumours which are not true. He will likely continue to do so here at school. I do not want to hear that you have been joining him in this."

My face twitched as I tried to keep a scowl from forming, but I must have failed, because her expression turned gentle and conciliatory, her tone softening.

"I understand that you may feel hurt if he deceived you. He is no doubt very practiced at using his fame to blind others to his true nature; it is not your fault you were taken in."

Yeah, right. As if Potter could fake that cute awkwardness (at least, when he wasn't grumpy or being a noble saviour) to my abilities. Imagining him as some sort of manipulative mastermind just made me want to laugh. I pasted something I hoped resembled a relieved smile on my face and gave yet another "Yes, ma'am."

"Good girl. Now, remember that you are in a delicate situation here, and you mustn't give anyone cause to doubt you. Tell me immediately if you hear anyone spreading those lies, or if Mr. Potter or his friends try to make you do anything you're not comfortable with, and I promise you will be safe."

I forced one last polite affirmation past a tightening throat and made my way to the door. She'd been treating me like the little girl she thought I was, assuming I'd blindly trust what she had to say and go along with her thinly-veiled request to turn informant just because it would 'keep me safe.'

Problem was, fourteen-year-old me might not have been fooled by that angle, but Professor Umbridge probably had political ambitions, because she hadn't hesitated to include a couple more in the subtext. If I didn't do what she said, she could start by telling everyone in the school I was part-fairy, and continue from there. 'Certain considerations,' 'excuses to treat me poorly.' And even just the first part, in addition to making me look like a complete incompetent to Boss, wouldn't exactly be making my job any easier. I wasn't sure I could ignore her request, not completely.

I sighed as the door closed behind me, waving off Katherine's concerns with a vague mention of the professor 'making sure I was doing alright.' I might have learned almost as much about Miss Government Inspector as she had about me, but I couldn't help feeling I'd come off worse in the exchange.