Chapter Text

  Paper crinkled in Claire’s hand, almost tearing in half with how tight she was holding it.

  An echo of her parents’ voices seemed to whisper in her mind, prompting her to loosen her death grip. She was a Belstring, not some common place mudblood. She was going to Hogwarts because she was an educated, proper pureblood girl and she had the luxury of choosing which wizarding school she should invest her time in. She deserved to be there. They were lucky to have her, in fact.

  Why should she be nervous?

  She nodded courteously at the bustling people around her, all bulky suitcases and noisy animals and tearful goodbyes. Pathetic. Claire and her family had already said their farewells in a far more dignified manner, before they left to drop her older brother off for his final year at Durmstrang. One of their house-elves, Libly, had been elected to assist Claire to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters. There was no need for tears and silly things like requests of letters and promises to not forget younger siblings and swearing to be good. Letters, remembering younger siblings and representing the family well were supposed to be simply a given, and it sounded lowly to have to remind the children of that. Tears of the pain of departure were a pathetic show of emotions.

  Claire tried not to show too much disdain as a mother nearby practically strangled her child, wailing about how she was ‘so grown up’.

  “Would Miss Claire like to find her friends?” Libly squeaked, eyeing the same family with a similar caution. “Away from such commonplace mudbloods?”

  Claire tilted her chin up loftily, turning her condescending gaze away from the grotesque show of unnecessary emotion, towards the outlandishly bright red train that was to take her to Hogwarts.

  “My friends will find me.” Claire purposefully strode forward, ignoring yet another family telling their child to make them proud through tears.

  That half-breed would have to work for their scraps of respect. Claire, her blood as pure as it was, would have no trouble in that regard. So what if she was the first in her family of three older siblings to go to Hogwarts instead of Durmstrang, or the third born girl, fourth born child? She was Claire Belstring . That meant something in their world.

  As for her friends, there were many respectable children going to Hogwarts this year. She would have good company. Pure company.

  Libly hurried along behind her, transporting all Claire’s luggage.

  Claire wasn’t too early, but by no means was she late . With Libly’s assistance, it was no trouble finding a clean, empty compartment.

  Libly bowed once she had stored all Claire’s luggage safely.

  “Libly hopes Miss Claire has a good term at Hogwarts, ma’am, and does not forget what her parents Lord and Lady Belstring have taught her.”

  “Of course not.” Claire rolled her eyes at the notion of the idea she would fail to uphold the Belstring name. She was not a failure .

  Libly bowed deeply again. “Libly will see Miss Claire at the Yule tide, ma’am.”

  Claire nodded and dismissed the house elf, who disappeared with a clear pop .

  The compartment was relatively peaceful. Certainly quieter than on the platform, but she could still hear the murmur of a thousand voices talking, shouted greetings, and all the other noises expected on a train station.

  From her spot on the train, she could easily spy out key families she needed to connect with. Inviting them into her compartment would start the fellowship, and a fellowship with the right people would get her far in life, hauling her up the societal ranks.

  The Malfoys with their pale hair and proper attitude were easily distinguishable from the rest. They were talking with the Parkinsons, who were wearing expensive designer robes to flaunt their wealth and status. Pansy was clearly trying to flirt with Draco — it had never been properly confirmed, but it was expected they would be engaged to be married soon. Quite an ambitious match, on the Parkinson’s behalf, but they had been consistent with it for quite a few years now, and it seemed Pansy had taken up attempting to convince Draco of their suitability.

  If the way he excused himself to talk with Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle was any indication, Draco didn’t seem too interested. He was an eleven year old boy, after all, but either way, he would be looking to make similar connections high up. There wasn’t much higher you could get than a Malfoy, but that just meant he had to choose his company wisely.

  He would be harder to sway into a friendship than Pansy. Not impossible, but more difficult. Claire and Pansy were already on relatively good terms, even if Pansy preferred Daphne’s company over her own. Daphne was another of high-standing however, so Claire could moderately understand that. She’d just have to lure them both into her compartment, then.

  Claire noticed the multitude of red-headed Weasleys next, and wrinkled her nose. She counted perhaps seven of them, which was far too much blood-traitorous contamination for her liking. And it seemed one of the weasels was just joining Hogwarts just now in his first year. Wonderful.

  Claire started to compile a list of whom to avoid.

  Draco Malfoy, Pansy Parkinson, and Daphne Greengrass would make good, intelligent company. Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott would also make for good company.

  Crabbe and Goyle were pure, but daft. Their intelligence {or lack thereof} contradicted most of their status. They made for great intimidators, however, due to their size, so they weren’t altogether useless. Not high on Claire’s list, but absent from it, either.

  The Weasleys were very high on Claire’s stay away from list. Blood traitors were almost worse than mudbloods and half-breeds. They’d been given the superiority of being pure, but tarnished, and threw it away. Mudblood lovers.

  Who else had Claire noticed at the latest gathering? The Malfoys had hosted, and invited all respectable families who had children going to Hogwarts, to initiate that fellowship. Of course, it doubled as an opportunity to send their son to Hogwarts with the reminder of who he was and what power and status he had, but fellowship would have been a notion behind the idea.

  Of course, most of these families were already quite close with each other and knew all the people worth knowing, but there were a couple of new faces. The Patil family didn’t normally grace occasions such as those, not being part of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, but they were still a moderately well-respected family of Indian descent. The Hamza family from Australia was another key addition and a more interesting one at that. Their eldest daughter, Luce, could be fun and interesting company, when she wasn’t blatantly showing disrespect for their customs.

  Luce wouldn’t be on the stay away from list, but as of yet, Claire couldn’t see reason for her to be high on her priorities.

  Speaking of the devil.

  Someone entered the train loudly, very audibly complaining about how heavy her trunk was in a thick Australian accent.

  A familiar face peeked in the compartment window and lit up upon seeing Claire.

  “Oi, help a girl out here.” Luce Hamza slammed open the door.

  There went the peace.

* * *

  Claire still held hopes that the others would join her.

  Luce was very loud and didn’t hold traditional customs in as high esteem, but her blood was pure nonetheless. Her father was rumoured to be held in high regard in Australian society, so it wasn’t as if Claire was sitting with a mudblood.

  By half past twelve, Claire was sure no one else was coming and her plans had been rudely foiled. She could still form close connections with high wizardings families from British society, but the first train ride was really the best place to form those connections. The only one Claire had gotten was a brazen Australian who spent forty-five minutes yapping about British sweets.

  It was fine though. Claire was resilient. She wouldn’t be deterred by this temporary setback. Luce could be funny. Even the jester was a role to be filled in the castle’s court.

  The rest of the roles however, lay unfilled. Much like the empty seats in Claire’s compartment, or the candy cart the Trolley Witch pushed through the halls.

  The lack of candy was a very sudden, very pressing issue that could and needed to be resolved quicker than the issue of societal standings.

  “What do you mean there’s no sweets?” Luce demanded of the poor witch. “Isn’t your whole job selling them to us?”

  “Surely you’ve got more.” Claire furthered pleadingly. “We don’t ask for much!”

  Luce was a bit more straightforward.

  “We’re stuck on this train for nine hours and you don’t even have sugar ?!”

  The trolley witch gave them a strained sympathetic smile, like she’d had this conversation  a hundred times already.

  “Yes.” She confirmed. “My apologies, but someone already beat you to buying the contents of my trolley.”

  Claire gave her companion an incredulous look. “ All of it? All of the train’s sweets? One person?”

  “Fat fuck.” Luce muttered.

  The Trolley witch looked aghast. “Language!”

  “What?! I’m just concerned !”

  “Yeah, you’re gonna give the kid diabetes!” Claire chimed in.

  Arguing with the witch clearly wasn’t the best course of action.

  “There are no more sweets, there is nothing you can do about it, and frankly at this moment, I wouldn’t want to sell you any. Good day.” She shut the compartment door in a huff.

  Claire looked at Luce mournfully. “I think we made her mad.”

  “Really? Hadn’t noticed.”

  “Do you think she’s going to sell us sweets on the ride back? I don’t think I’ll survive another nine hour journey without any sugar.”

  “You know what?” Luce stood up abruptly. “We’re going to go find them.”

  Claire blinked. “Who?”

  “The pig. Who bought all our sugar?” Luce opened the door the Trolley Witch had closed. “Are you coming or not?”

  “Got nothing better to do.”

  Walking through the train felt like it should have been more magical than it was. Sure, Claire had grown up around magic, so she felt more immune to the little things that she’d seen fascinate some of the lesser blood children. But still, the Hogwarts Express had been hyped up. It was a train. A sugarless train unless they could find out who stole their candy and take some back. She wasn’t fond of her chances against a seventh year student, but another first year, that she could handle.

  If they were a first year of higher standings, however, Claire might have to rethink her vengeance plan. It could be a great opportunity for making those connections that she refused to have been foiled. She could solve her two largest problems in one go!

  Luce was very clearly on a mission to beat whoever had stolen the sweets up, regardless of how old or experienced they were, and how young and inexperienced she was in comparison. It was definitely best that Claire was there to recognise a fight they could or couldn’t win, and to stop Luce ruining any chance she had to make decent connections.

  Luce stormed ahead, on the lookout for any noticeably round children who had the appearance of being capable to buy and consume an entire trolley of candy, while Claire peered through the windows of each door with the skills of a certified stalker to see any obscenely large piles of candy in any one compartment.

  It turned out she didn’t need to worry about Luce attempting to beat any older student only to have her ass handed to her, however, as their culprit was a skinny homeless looking boy and a Weasley. Seriously, that family bred like rabbits. There was a line of how many kids people ought to have. A money-to-kids ratio if you would.

  Her family? Rich. Stupidly so. They could afford to have five kids with perfectly tailored clothes and enough food and all the things you needed to raise or keep said children functional. The Weasleys? Poor. Stupidly so. They could not afford their like, seven billion kids. Seriously, look at the state of both of their clothes. Hand me downs from the eighteen hundreds, probably.

  Claire and Luce could definitely take these two on.

  Claire didn’t recognise the homeless-looking kid either, which meant it shouldn’t be a problem if she automatically made an enemy. Anyone sitting with a Weasley wasn’t worth her time. She wouldn’t be surprised if it was a mudblood.

  Claire slid the compartment door open.

  “What are you doing?” Luce asked grumpily, from further up the train, having finally realised that Claire had stopped.

  Claire pointed at the two boys, who had briefly stopped stuffing their faces with sweets. “They’re not round.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Luce’s eyes lit with a righteous fire as she pushed past to stare at their unfortunate victims. “They’re going to be round soon , aren’t they?”

  Homeless-looking-kid swallowed his candy. Claire supposed rationally, he couldn’t be homeless since one of the two apparently had enough money to buy the entire cart and she knew for a fact it wasn’t Weasley. That made it worse. He had money, but clearly no sense of style whatsoever . Another point to the kid being a mudblood. Perhaps a mudblood with money, and Weasley was making his own connections.

  “Uh, my cousin’s round?” Not-so-homeless-kid said weakly.

  “Oh, you got the good genetics, huh?” Claire rolled her eyes. “Better hope those hold.”

  Weasley shifted and at least three candy wrappers fell to the floor. “What do you two want?”

  “Candy.” Luce said bluntly. “But we can’t because someone bought all the sweets. Seriously, how do you even do that? There’s two of you!”

  Not-homeless-kid’s face dissolved into understanding. “Oh!”

  “Oh,” Claire mocked, swiping a chocolate frog. “Who do you think you are anyway?”

  “I’m Harry Potter.” Not-homeless kid offered.

  Claire stared at him. She kept her face carefully blank, but she was screaming internally. Harry Potter. As in, saviour of the Wizarding World, Boy Who Lived Harry Potter. Perhaps the person with the greatest status in their world, regardless of the fact he was a half-blood with apparently no sense of style, and Claire had in their first interaction, butchered any chance of fellowship.

  Luce had either not heard of the tales of Harry Potter or just didn’t care.

  “I don’t care if you’re Harry or Harriet or Harold or whomever, why the whole cart?”

  Claire cleared her throat. “Luce.”

  “Harry Potter?” Luce continued, oblivious to Claire’s attempts to get her to shut up. “That sounds like such a prick’s name!”

  “Excuse you?” Weasley demanded. “This is the Boy Who Lived!”

  “So are you, your heart’s still beating isn’t it? Unless all that sugars already gave you a heart attack.”

  Claire face palmed and dragged her hand slowly down her face. Stupid Australians and their stupid lack of knowledge and sarcasm and refusal to uphold the proper customs and respect.

  “I don’t, for the record, agree with her statements.” Claire told Potter in a vain attempt to bridge the gap she had created. “She doesn’t understand how things work around here.”

  Luce whirled around to glare at Claire. “Is this about that boring ass party I had to go to?”

  “It was an esteemed social gathering for families of high standings.” Claire said through gritted teeth and a fake smile.

  “Boring ass party.” Luce repeated. “They didn’t even have good food.” As it turned out, she had a very pointed one-track mind. “Neither does this train, apparently , thanks to you selfish brits!”

  “You can have some.” Potter offered shyly.

  Claire figured it was more of a peace please-take-them-and-get-out-of-my-face offering and not a hey-I’m-actually-sorry-about-this thing, but either way, she’d take the sweets and leave with the remaining shreds of her and Luce’s dignities.

  She and Luce shoved a bunch of sweets and pastries into their pockets.

  “Uh, thank you. Sorry about …” Claire waved a hand absently. “That.”

  She tried not to cringe. Sorry about that? And Potter seemed kind of nice and innocent, too, which made everything worse. Naive. Easy to sway.

  In a way, it was good Weasley wasn’t as nice.

  “That’s the sort that will be sorted into Slytherin, Harry. Stuck up purebloods only trying to be nice when they’ve decided you’re of use.”

  The way he said that made it sound like that wasn’t exactly what friends were for. They were of use, so you were nice to them. It was a transactional affair.

  Weasley wasn’t done with his insults, though. “That’s how future death eaters act.”

  Luce whirled around. “And you , Weasley, are how future assholes act.”

  “ Present assholes, Luce.” Claire corrected. Hey, Weasley had turned it nasty. It was therefore simply retaliation and a perfectly respectable thing to do.

  And he was a Weasley. It was self-explanatory.

  She cut him off again when he opened his mouth to respond. “I will not have a battle of wits against an unarmed opponent.”

  That would have made the most badass exit ever, except for the fact that Claire stubbed her toe as she was leaving and therefore swore loudly. The misfortunes were piling up. Fate did not want her on good terms with someone who’s friendship would have skyrocketing social benefits. And she wasn’t saying Potter was naive and didn’t know what on earth politics were about, and that she could have used that to her advantage if they were friends.

  But there was also fucking that.

  “Goddammit, Claire.” Luce sighed, very exasperatedly.

  “Oops?” Claire offered sheepishly. “Should we redo our dramatic exit?”

  “Duh. But that was a good line, we’re repeating that.”

  Weasley and Potter exchanged a bewildered look as the two girls did just that and left, slamming the compartment door dramatically after them.

  “I don’t understand women, Harry.” Weasley’s voice said faintly from inside the compartment.

  “At least we got sugar?” Claire pointed out.

  Luce nodded, satisfied, and immediately got to work consuming this sugar, starting with a chocolate frog, which she did not eat at all elegantly. This wouldn’t have been Claire’s main concern if she hadn’t run into Draco Malfoy of all people.

  She had already fucked up companionship with Harry Potter, she couldn’t mess this one up too.

  “Malfoy.” Claire nodded at him politely.

  “Belstring.” He nodded back. “Who’s your companion?”

  “Luce Hamza.”

  A faint glimmer of interest sparked across Malfoy’s face. “The Australian?”

  “Yes.” Claire quickly agreed. “Quite high in their ranks. Luce, this is Draco Malfoy.”

  “Who?” Luce replied vacantly, very clearly more interested in fighting against her newfound chocolate frog’s desire to leave her mouth and jump to freedom. “Get back in there bitch.”

  Malfoy raised an eyebrow, all interest fading into disgust. “Pleasure.”

  Luce would not mess this up for Claire.

  “Ah, the Australian sweets are different from ours.” She tried to remember what Luce had ranted about. “They’re more dangerous, and come in a variety of different animals that you have to physically best.”

  Malfoy frowned. “Why on earth would that appeal to them?”

  Claire tried not to stare as Luce grabbed the chocolate frog’s leg and slammed it repetitively against her opposite palm.

  “Australians are … the dangers appeal to them. Challenges, to sharpen their wit and reactions.”

  “Right.” Malfoy didn’t seem fully convinced, but decided that ignoring Luce was the best course of action. “Where have you been then?”

  “Conversing with Potter.” Claire elected to leave out the ‘accidentally bullying him’ part of it.

  Malfoy lit up like Christmas had come early. “Potter’s here?”

  Claire, ignoring Luce actively slamming her chocolate frog against the wall in an attempt to ‘kill’ it, answered. “Yes. Over in that compartment there. Be warned, however, he is seated with a Weasley. And purchased all the sweets in this entire train.”

  Malfoy appeared to turn deaf after hearing of Potter’s whereabouts, his dreams of being Potter’s best friend finally realised.

  “I’m going to introduce myself to him.” He decided.

  “We’ll leave you to that.” Claire agreed and moved straight past him, back to the safety of her own compartment. Luce trailed behind, chewing her limp chocolate frog in victory.

  Claire’s conversation with Draco Malfoy didn’t seem to have gone terribly. That possibility of a friendship was still very much alive, and if Malfoy managed to win Potter over, he might be more welcoming towards Claire. She could explain the honest mixup once he had been introduced to the way their world worked through a source that was not as unreliable as a Weasley. Not everything was a lost cause after all.

  Claire’s good mood was vanquished the moment she stepped foot into her compartment to find a bushy-haired girl she’d never seen before, elbow-deep in Claire’s trunk.

  The girl didn’t even look fazed when she heard their footsteps and whirled around. “Ah, you’re back, you can help me.”

  This bushy-haired, buck-toothed bitch wasn’t a pureblood, which meant she had a lot of fucking audacity.

  Claire wanted to start immediately cussing her out. But she had thought Potter was a mudblood at first glance.

  “Who are you?” Claire couldn’t make herself sound nice about it.

  “My name’s Hermione Granger. I must say, being here is very exciting, don’t you think?”

  “It’s a train.” Claire had definitely never heard of a Granger family.

  Luce gasped dramatically and pointed at the mudblood girl. “It’s a stowaway! Oh, wait, no, it’s just a thief.”

  The girl went red. “I’m not stealing anything.” She looked down at the clothes worth more than her life that she was holding, then sheepishly dropped Claire’s stuff and stepped away.

  Claire wrinkled her nose. She hadn’t even neared Hogwarts and already she needed to deep clean all her belongings.

  “Care to explain what you were doing then?” She scowled at the girl, who was very definitely outnumbered and cornered in the compartment she had intruded in.

  “A boy called Neville’s lost his toad, so I agreed to help search for it.” The mudblood looked at Claire’s open trunk. “I was just checking. You weren’t here.”

  The idea of a disgusting toad anywhere near Claire’s pristine belongings made her want to deep clean everything twice . First a mudblood, now a toad — neither was any better than the other!

  “And what part of our absence made you think it was okay to go through our belongings?” Claire demanded hotly.

  The mudblood shifted nervously, perhaps gaining the situational awareness to know that she had messed up .

  “I didn’t go through her trunk.” She pointed at Luce. “It tried to bite me when I got close.”

  “I can get my mum to enchant yours too.” Luce said when Claire glared at her.

  If it kept the thieving mudbloods away.

  “Oh, are your parents magic?” The mudblood lit up. “Mine aren’t, so it was ever such a surprise when I received my letter.”

  Claire barked out a laugh. “You didn’t need to tell me you were a mudblood. I could smell the dirt on you. Honey let me give you a tip, no one wants to hear you confess to being contaminated. Don’t go around blabbing it out to everyone you come across. I’m not going to give you pitying points, because I’m sure your parents would have taught you better, even if they are muggles.”

  “Time out.” Luce made a T with her hands. “You’re really tearing her apart, I get it, I agree, she’s been a thieving stowaway. But you’re really hyper fixating on the fact she’s a muggleborn, and as someone with a muggleborn mother — ”

  Claire whipped her head around to stare at Luce so fast she was lucky she didn’t snap her own neck.

  “Your mother is a muggleborn ?”

  Luce looked supremely confused. “Did you not know that already? I didn’t exactly make an effort to hide it. I guess I haven’t said it outright but — ”

  “You went to a pureblood gathering!”

  Luce groaned. “We’re talking about that boring ass party again? Yeah I went to it, my dad said I had to, to ‘make connections’ and ‘befriend people in my year level’.”

  “But your father’s a pureblood, is he not?” Claire had been associating with a halfblood this whole time, thinking they were equal. And Luce had let her, taking advantage of Claire’s temporary unknowing kindness.

  “Well, yeah I guess.”

  Claire studied Luce in an entirely different light. Before, she had clung to the fact her father was an important Australian figure. Now she knew he was a mudblood lover.

  “I thought your family was high in the Australian societal class.”

  Luce looked completely lost. “I don’t … I guess? We don’t — ” She looked around the compartment for help, and her eyes fell upon the thieving mudblood that had started this whole discussion. “You need to leave. It seems me and my friend need to have a conversation.”

  The way she emphasised ‘friend’ got on Claire’s nerves. They were acquaintances as of yet, and if Luce proved more harm than help in Claire’s journey to climb the societal ranking ladder, acquaintances was all they would stay.

  The mudblood looked way too interested in this turn of events for Claire’s liking. “Oh, but this is such an interesting debate! I mean the different sentiments and beliefs in life — it’s right out of one of my books!”

  Luce almost threw Claire out against the wall and slammed the door open, gesturing angrily out. “We’re not a fucking spectacle for you to take entertainment in. Leave.”

  Prompted by heated glares, the mudblood decided to take her leave.

  Luce slammed the door after her before looking at Claire.

  “So is this magic racism or something? Cause I’m not a fan.” 

  “It’s not racism , it’s just, you know — ”

  Luce gestured angrily, “I know what!?”

  “Apparently not enough!” Claire spat. “I suppose if you don’t understand blood status, or our customs, you won’t understand the politics, or — ”

  “Sorry for not caring about boring ass things that clearly hurt people.” Luce’s voice was laced with sarcasm.

  “It doesn’t hurt people, it keeps them in their proper place.”

  “Beneath you?”

  “Yes!”

  Luce looked disgusted. “That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.”

  “That’s just how it is.” Claire slammed her trunk shut and shoved it away. It was fine. Everything was fine. They were nearly at Hogwarts and the house elves there could deep clean Claire’s belongings. Luce’s father was still apparently high in Australian society. He might be a mudblood lover, and his daughter a half-blood, but it didn’t mean she was completely useless.

  Claire could fix this situation. She’d just have to smooth over her and Luce’s so-called ‘friendship’. Luce just didn’t understand politics. Claire could educate her, and then everything would be fine.

  “But you’re right.” The best way to get close to someone, so that you could manipulate them, was always to admit you were wrong and they were right. “It is kinda silly. You being a half-blood isn’t that big of a deal.”

  Luce didn’t look convinced or satisfied at the abrupt change of topic, but let it slide for now. “You wanna talk shit about buck-tooth because what the actual fuck was that?”

Chapter Text

  Luce didn’t know anything about important British wizards. Or societal class. And Claire should have realised this might be the case the moment she had seen Luce behaving in such a blatantly disrespectful manner at the gathering, but she had foolishly held some hope. She had thought Luce’s blood was pure.

  It was not.

  Luce didn’t know who Draco Malfoy was. She didn’t know who Harry Potter was. And while Potter’s similar ignorance of the way of things could have worked to Claire’s advantage, his name outweighing all else, Luce’s ignorance would only serve to drag Claire down.

  Claire wasn’t ignorant. Her name might have held some weight in their world, but it wasn’t held in great esteem. She would have an easier time earning respect than halfbreeds and mudbloods, but she still had to fight her way up the ranks. Alliances with high ranking people like Draco Malfoy, Harry Potter, or even Pansy Parkinson would make this fight so much easier, and her name would quickly be elevated by association.

  Associations with ignorant halfbreeds like Luce Hamza, however, would drag her name down and make the fight for respect a difficult, bloody one.

  It would be best to respectfully cut her losses. Luce’s father might be influential in Australian politics, but Australia was half a world away. Unless Claire planned to move to Australia — which was not an option in any way, shape or form, she would not start anew in a different continent as a nobody — she couldn’t see how Luce’s company could greatly benefit her. Especially since it seemed that half the reason for Claire’s lack of alliance with preferable company was due to Luce being as she was.

  She couldn’t seem to shake Luce off yet. Seeking to find others would most likely result in being followed by someone who would be automatically associated with her. Claire couldn’t have that.

  So she was stuck in the compartment with a half-breed who didn’t know anything about their world that she was careful to continue to be cordially nice to, and her trunk filled with contaminated belongings until a voice echoed through the train, informing their arrival to Hogwarts in five minutes.

  Hogwarts. Where they would be sorted into one of four houses that would direct the course of their lives.

  Claire’s parents hadn’t offered much information on the school. Claire had made the decision to be different from her siblings, and thus it was up to her to figure things out on her own.

  She knew the houses, and what each stood for. Hogwarts: A History was a tasteless book that bored her from the first page, but house elves could be made to read and summarise the needed information for her. Houses were a large part of it.

  Gryffindor. Named after Godric Gryffindor, its emblem was a lion. A cliche trope for courage, which they based half their worth off. Favoured by blood traitors and brash, uneducated swine that would not benefit Claire’s social standing in any way possible. Her parents had already informed her she would be erased from their family history — and likely by extension, the earth — if she was to dare step foot in that red eyesore of a common room.

  Hufflepuff. Named for Helga Hufflepuff, this was the reject house for people who did not fit into the guidelines of the other houses. Another one to avoid. Claire was not a reject .

  Ravenclaw. Rowena Ravenclaw had founded this, and given her house the emblem of an eagle. This wasn’t Claire’s first choice of preference, but as it stood for wit and wisdom, it wouldn’t be altogether awful if she was placed there.

  And finally, Slytherin. Salazar Slytherin had founded the house of the snakes, and he knew what he was doing when he did so. A house for those pure, with the ambition and cunning to make it far. Slytherin wouldn’t be contaminated so easily by the lesser population let into Hogwarts, and by being sorted into this house, Claire would easily make good connections to higher benefit her social standing.

  Claire observed Luce’s very obvious relief at the prospect of getting off the train. She doubted Luce would make Slytherin. So if Claire was sorted as she should be, she could by default, stop associating with Luce in a convenient, non-messy way. She just had to be nice for a few more short hours yet.

  “Thank the Lord.” Luce groaned in obvious relief, completely oblivious to Claire’s scheming. “I’m never doing this again.” 

  “I regret to inform you, then, that this is the only method of transportation Hogwarts provides.” Claire patted her shoulder sympathetically.

  Luce stopped mid-getting up. “Are you joking?”

  “Jokes?” Claire said airily, standing with a lot more grace than her reluctant companion. “I’m unfamiliar with the term. Is it muggle?”

  “Oh haha.” Luce’s voice was heavy with that sarcasm she never seemed to drop as she aggressively opened the compartment door.

  It quickly became apparent that despite her clear, almost Gryffindor-esce confidence, Luce had no idea where she was going, nor where she was supposed to be going.

  Claire didn’t have a better idea, but it was always best not to disclose your own shortcomings. By grabbing Luce’s robes in an effort to not be separated, she was letting the half blood take charge, and therefore be responsible when she failed to lead them where they were supposed to go.

  Which was exactly what happened, as following the entirety of the school to magic carriages was proven the incorrect thing for them as first years to do. Naturally, this was only noticed by the time it was far too late and an older student with the yellow and black badger emblem of Hufflepuff house on his robes spoke up.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen you two before.” He said as the carriage started moving by itself. He frowned. “Why aren’t you wearing your ties? The prefects will get you in trouble.”

  Claire and Luce looked at each other in slight confusion.

  The boy grew a look of dawning horror. “What year are you in?”

  “First.” Claire said slowly.

  He exchanged wide-eyed looks with the other student.

  “You’re supposed to be on the boats.” An older girl with the Ravenclaw blue and bronze raven told them. “Did you not see Hagrid?”

  “What’s a Hagrid?” Luce demanded.

  “He’s half-giant, how did you miss him?” the boy exclaimed, panicking.

  “Luce, I swear to Merlin, how could you have missed the half-giant?” Claire complained. And how could Hogwarts have employed a half-giant to guide first year students to wherever the hell they were supposed to be? Giants were dangerous!

  Luce’s neck did a full 180. “Oh, this is my fault? You didn’t see him either!”

  “You were leading us!” Claire angrily gestured to the path she had followed Luce down. Some leader she turned out to be. First not a pureblood, now with no sense of direction and a desire to point her misfortune on the innocent.

  Luce seemed to have a similar train of thought. Just backward. “Okay, so first it’s having a muggleborn mother, now it’s this, are you going to be mad at me for everything?”

  The Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw students, who had previously been laughing to themselves over their plight and being completely unuseful, started side-eying Claire, who really didn’t understand how she was the problem here. Luce had tricked her, not the other way around. Claire had never pretended to favour the company of those with lesser blood, and Luce had exploited her moment of unknowing.

  Yet the cart was on Luce’s side. And Claire knew it. And Luce knew it, if her condescending smile towards Claire was anything to go by.

  Claire could attempt to defend herself, or apologise for her mistakes. But she doubted any of the three students staring at her and waiting for her response would accept that, and thus she would lower herself to a position of vulnerability for no good foreseeable outcome.

  Claire tilted her chin up haughtily and turned her head to face the dark forest they were passing through. “I am not as unreasonable as you make me out to be.”

  The scenery outside would have been beautiful had it not been so dark outside, painting the surrounding forestry with the eerie vibe fit for a gothic painting.

  “Why are we going near this creepy ass forest-thing?” Luce asked the older students, squishing closer to Claire to get a better look. Claire pushed Luce away from her.

  The Ravenclaw girl decided to answer her. “That’s the Forbidden Forest. We’re not permitted to go there. Dumbledore will tell you more in his speech after your sorting.”

  Luce suddenly looked far too interested in this forbidden forest for Claire’s liking. But after they had been sorted, when Dumbledore supposedly would give them more information on this Forbidden Forest, Luce would no longer be a problem of Claire’s.

  “What kind of animals are in there?”

  Raven-girl shrugged. “Unicorns — ”

  “I’m going to the forest.” Luce interjected.

  Claire doubted a creature as majestic as a unicorn would hang around a human as loud and uncouth as Luce.

  “There’s rumours of Acromulanta — giant spiders.” Puff-boy told her, clearly trying to dissuade the first year’s eagerness for an early death.

  “I bet they’re tiny.” Luce dismissed.

  “Acromulanta are seriously large.” Raven-girl warned.

  “I don’t believe you.” Luce said in typical Luce-fashion. She turned to Claire. “We’re going to the forest.”

  “No we are not.” Claire returned boredly. It surprised her, slightly, that Luce still said ‘we’, as if she could fathom a possible future alliance with Claire, after complaining so much about Claire’s hesitance to dirty herself by association.

  “You don’t get a choice. Would you rather I go alone?”

  “Please do.”

  “That’s not very friendship-like of you.”

  There Luce was again, throwing around the word ‘friend’ towards Claire, like a few select hours — however enlightening to her character they may have been — could determine a friendship so easily.

  The cart rolled to a stop in front of the castle. And yes. Hogwarts was a castle. A giant one at that. 

  It was so magnificent that after Claire had exited the carriage, she just had to stare at it in awe for a good minute.

  She could feel the ancient magic in the school seeping into her. The architecture and tall walls remind her of catholic churches, but the warmth the school radiated told the tales of past students in the air. Great, renowned wizards had graced these halls, walked where Claire now stood. Legends had been raised and taught here. Hogwarts professed itself as the greatest school of witchcraft and wizardry there was, and by simply staring outside and looking in, feeling the ancient magic stir within her at her disposal — she could see why.

  Claire closed her eyes and breathed in, smiling faintly when she exhaled. Yes. She had made the right decision in choosing Hogwarts.

  A decision she had taken a few minutes of silence to be sure in. A few minutes of silence that said Luce was not near her.

  Claire looked around, a slight panic twisting her stomach. She might not want to continue to associate with Luce for much longer, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be the only first year to have entered Hogwarts the wrong way. That, more than associating with a half breed, would damage her reputation.

  She was safe from this plight, however. Luce had not abandoned her. Luce had simply been held back by the older two students.

  Now that she was paying attention to the carriage, she could faintly make out voices. She rolled her eyes when she heard “blood purist”. She didn’t need to be Merlin to figure out exactly what nonsense those older students were filling Luce’s head with.

  The Ravenclaw girl must have seen Claire looking, as she loudly exclaimed, “But we’ll let you go! Good luck.”

  It took another minute for the three to exit the carriage and the older students to finish their predictable goodbyes, wishing Luce well and to see her in their respective houses, and for her to be careful. Honestly. What was it with the lower class that they liked to drag on a farewell so?

  The Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw ignored Claire, who neglected to give them the time of day in turn.

  Luce ran to catch up with Claire, who arched an eyebrow in questioning.

  “What did they want with you?” 

  Luce had a face that said she hadn’t listened to a word they had said. “Something about how you’re racist — I don’t care, we’re finding a unicorn.”

  “You won’t be allowed to do that.” Claire dismissed. Luce needed to let this unicorn obsession go.

  “Watch me.” Luce squinted at the passing students. “They mentioned something about a ‘special house’.” She made bunny ears. “They said it, like, a bunch of times but I forgot. I’m sure this special house will let me do whatever I want, right? What are the houses, again?”

  “Fluff, nerd, jock and evil.” A passing student answered her casually as he walked by.

  Claire took a moment to process this. That sounded about right.

  “What house are you in?” She yelled after the kid.

  “What house will let me go to the forest?” Luce shouted at the same time. Clearly one of them had the correct priorities and it wasn’t Miss Unicorn over here.

  “Figure it out!” Was their only answer.

  “Asshole,” Claire yelled. The kid didn’t turn around as he waved behind him. “Can you believe — ” She stopped when she saw Luce looking around nervously. She had stopped in front of the large gate that opened into a courtyard, adjacent to a giant hall all the other students were going into.

  “Claire, where are we meant to go?”

  Oh, now Luce wanted Claire’s opinion. Now she cared what Claire had to say. Funny, that was.

  Less funny since it was a situation that Claire was similarly lost as to what to do in, but she was resilient. She could figure it out. She wanted to follow all the flow of students, but the last time they did that, they went the wrong way. And none of these passing students were giving them the time of day anymore, having their own much more interesting conversations and company to worry about than that of two lost first year students.

  No, Claire wouldn’t introduce herself to the rest of the school by presenting herself as a lost little girl with no clue of what was going on in the world. She was Claire Belstring . And Claire Belstring knew exactly what to do.

  Claire straightened her spine and started marching towards the castle. “Follow me.”

  If she wandered around the castle enough, she’d eventually find something. In a few hours … or tomorrow … or next week …

  She shoved the doors open and marched across a random hall.

  “Now what?” Luce asked, after they passed the third animated painting. Who drew them to be so judgy? Who made Luce to be so judgy? If neither the paintings, nor Luce, had any advice or help to offer, they could shut up, fix their faces, and let Claire figure it out on her own without adding extra pressure.

  Claire opened her mouth to make something up, but was saved by a sharp voice calling across the hall.

  “What are you two doing back here?” It was a witch who looked both stern and like she would have an idea of what they were supposed to be doing.

  Claire nudged Luce forward. It was Luce’s fault they had gone to the carriages instead of finding this mysterious Hagrid person. Luce could explain why they were there, in a place they weren’t supposed to be.

  Luce stared at the witch, then looked at Claire, who pinched her nose in annoyance.

  “We’re ever so sorry.” Claire was the more diplomatic one anyway. Luce would get them into trouble before they even had stepped foot into the Hall. “But we’re lost, ma’am. We’re first years, you see, and we got caught up with all the older students and went on the carriages, which of course, we understand we weren’t supposed to do now.”

  The witch’s face faded from slight confusion and annoyance to exasperation. “There’s always a few isn’t there? You two follow me. I’m meeting the others at the harbour.”

  The two girls all-too-eagerly fell in step with the witch, who told them her name was Professor Mcgonagall and she was the vice principal.

  “I hope we’re not being led to the dungeons to be killed.” Claire muttered to Luce, after fifteen minutes of following said Profesor down some … questionable hallways.

  “Should’ve thought of that before you gave our position up to her, huh?”

  No, Luce should have thought of that before she led them the wrong way and got them into this mess in the first place. Claire was attempting to rectify Luce’s mistakes.

  They didn’t have a better option, either way, so they followed her across a flagged stone floor to the entrance hall they had seen earlier. The hall was huge and had floating candles enchanted to the ceiling. The Profesor stopped in front of a huge oak door and waited. It was silent for a long time. Luce was clearly itching to ask questions and Claire was just about to ask a few of her own queries, beginning with what they were waiting for.

  Bang.

  Bang.

  Bang.

  Someone thumped loudly on the doors, scaring Claire half to death and causing Luce to jump and curse loudly. Sneak into the forbidden forest, her ass, Luce couldn’t even face a knocking sound.

  Professor McGonagall pulled the door open at once, revealing the rest of their future peers and a giant of a man who had to be Hagrid.

  “How did we miss that?” Claire muttered to Luce, who shrugged back. Considering the man took up half the already abnormally large doorway, it was truly a wonder.

  The other students poured into the room like ducklings running away from their mother, shooting the girls questioning glances.

  “The first years, Professor McGongall.” The giant said.

  “Thank you, Hagrid. I will take them from here.” She pulled the door wide and led everyone back the exact way Luce and Claire had just walked.

  Basically the message Claire was receiving was she was doing a lot of walking for no reason, because she was right in the first place, despite much disbelief from some particular parties (cough, Luce ).

  Professor McGonagall started talking about the sorting ceremony and each house in a voice that said she’d given this exact information like a script to every house group every year since she started teaching. She didn’t go into detail into which houses favoured which traits, or even which house she was in. She ended by telling them to wait and smarten themselves up, then disappeared.

  “Damn.” Claire said into the silence. “She really got up and left like that.”

  “She didn’t tell me which house would let me find unicorns in the forest.” Luce complained.

  “Probably because none of them will.”

  Potter and Weasley started theorising about how they’d be sorted into their houses. Weasley mentioned a test that apparently hurt a lot that he’d heard about from his older siblings. This served to freak out a lot of first years surrounding him. The buck-toothed mudblood would tell anyone who would listen (and everyone who didn’t want to, too) about all the spells she’d learnt and theorise which ones she’d need. It was irritating, and honestly unsettling, seeing how many of her peers were so uneducated they didn’t know how they were to be sorted. Claire had tasked Libly with finding that information out for her as soon as it became a prominent thing that literally would determine the course of her life at Hogwarts .

  Because they needed more excitement in their lives, ghosts started floating in through the walls, completely unprompted, and welcomed by the gasps and screams of ignorant first years who believed ghosts could cause physical bodily harm.

  Claire, having looked up after she heard Luce gasp, saw the transparent mediaeval witches and wizards so deep into their argument they didn’t notice the group or their (very) audible (and highly annoying) reactions.

  “ — forgive and forget, I say, we ought to give him a second chance — ”

  “My dear Friar, haven’t we given Peeves all the chances he deserves? He gives us all a bad name and you know, he’s not really even a ghost — I say, what are you all doing here?”

  The ghost wearing a ruff and tights finally brought attention to the group of mostly terrified first years who honestly did not know what they were doing there because McGonagall had disappeared on them without explanation.

  “New students!” The Fat Friar smiled at them all. “About to be Sorted, I suppose?”

  A few people nodded.

  “Hope to see you in Hufflepuff!” The Friar tried to get someone alive to talk to him in vain. “My old house, you know.”

  Professor McGonagall returned. “Move along, now. The Sorting Ceremony’s about to start.”

  The ghosts floated through the opposite wall one by one.

  “Form a line and follow me.” Professor McGonagall instructed and led them out of the chamber, back across the Hall (what was this, the third time?! Claire was getting sick of seeing the same couple of walls) and through a pair of double doors into the Great Hall.

  The Hall was quite possibly the most beautiful room Claire had ever stepped into (and she lived in a mansion). Lit by thousands of floating candles, there were four long tables, one for each of the houses, laden with glittering gold goblets and goblets. At the top of the hall was another long table for the teachers.

  Claire looked up at the ceiling while Professor McGonagall led them up to the teacher’s table. Was there even a ceiling? The velvety black and twinkling of stars made Claire inclined to think it just opened up to the heavens. She knew that couldn’t be right architecturally (she’d seen floors directly above it from the outside), nor was it practical (what if it rained?), but it was so realistic that logic seemed to fly out the window.

  “It’s bewitched to look like the sky outside.” Buck-tooth whispered to everyone and no one in particular. “I read about it in Hogwarts, A History .”

  The sole reason Claire would now open that tasteless book was to find whatever charm was used there and beg her older brother to put it on her room back at home. The best part about Maël turning seventeen; he was legally allowed to do this. Never mind that he, Juliette and Elodie had been doing magic at home since their respective first years at Durmstrang. 

  Professor McGonagall put a four-legged stool down in front of all the first years. It looked very unremarkable. The hat she placed down on the stool was even more so, being the shabbiest, dirtiest article of clothing Claire had probably ever seen. Why such an ugly thing would ever be placed in such a beautiful room was lost on her, until it started singing.

  When Libly had told her a magical Hat that had once belonged to Godric Gryffindor himself was to sort her into her house, Claire had pictured something a lot more grandiose than the dirty, contaminated hat that was placed on an entirely normal stool. To make matters worse, it seemed that the singing , dirty, contaminated hat was apparently very full of itself, considering in the first three verses, it sang about how it was the best hat in the world, before proceeding to sing a description of each of the houses.

  Boring.

  Claire knew what house she was going to be sorted into already.

  She looked to her left. Maybe the only other person in this hall who wasn’t at all paying attention to the hat’s song was Luce, who was clearly zoned out, not listening at all. This was one of Luce’s many stupid decisions. She knew nothing about any of the houses, and was the one who wanted to know which of the houses would let her out to hunt down unicorns in the forbidden forest.

  Now, Claire supposed, Luce would just never know.

  The hat finished its song (finally) with “You’re in safe hands (though I have none) / For I’m a Thinking Cap!” and everyone burst into applause, feeding the hat’s overinflated hat ego. It bowed to each of the tables like it was a great performer and became still.

  Professor McGonagall then proceeded to read off people’s names in alphabetical order . It didn’t matter if it was by their first or last names, Claire was fucked. As it was, she was second . She almost felt bad for Hannah Abbott, who was first, but Hannah Abbott was also sorted into Hufflepuff, which was the most neutral house you could get. No one cared about that.

  Something told Claire that her being appointed to Slytherin would not go over with the Hall so well.

  She kept her head high. Her last name had been shouted out to the Hall. She would not have them scorn her.

  Claire waited as the hat was lowered over her eyes. Apparently it was going to look into her mind to interpret her thoughts and from that, decide what house she would thrive in. Invasion of privacy much?

  She started projecting Slytherin to the hat. She wanted to get this over and done with. She was plenty ambitious and cunning enough to be Slytherin. She would thrive in Slytherin above all else.

  The hat hummed to itself while evidently sorting her mind.

  It contracted slightly around her head. Oh. I am sorry child.

  Claire’s blood ran cold. If this thing was about to put her in fucking Gryffindor —

  “SLYTHERIN!”

  She physically deflated in relief, then tensed again. You gave me the house I want. Why are you sorry?

  Your path will not be as easy as you think it will be.

  The hat was pulled off her head before she could register its words.

  “Wait — ” Claire mumbled. That was ominous. She wasn’t making that up, right? That was freaking ominous!

  “Go.” Professor McGonagall motioned her to move. Someone from the Gryffindor table booed.

  Claire moved stiffly over to her table. The table she wanted. The house she needed to be in. The path that would not be as easy as she thought it would be.

  Just before she sat down, Luce shouted after her.

  “You look so good in green!”

  Claire shrank in her seat. “I don’t know who that is.”

  “She seems fond of you.” The Slytherin student sitting next to her pointed out.

  “She’s such a dumbass.” Claire mumbled. “Teach me to show levels of compassion to transfer students.”

  “I thought she sounded odd.” He held out his hand. “Jacob Nichols.”

  Claire shook it. “Claire Belstring.”

  “Welcome to Slytherin, Claire.” He looked over to Luce. “She’s a Hufflepuff for sure. Won’t bother you.”

  The sorting continued. Claire zoned most of it out. What did it matter to her that Lavender Brown was a Gryffindor? The Sorting Hat had freaking apologised to her before putting her in Slytherin, then issued a warning that sounded more like a threat when she asked why. That was crazy! That was suspicious. That was definitely something to be concerned about.

  She became more concerned when Luce’s name was called out, only for Luce to sit on the stool for a good couple of minutes. She looked like she was arguing intently with the hat. Claire wanted to go back and question it herself, to demand what it meant by that, what her path was and why it was going to be harder than she thought it was.

  “SLYTHERIN!” The Hat finally shouted to the hall, much to Claire’s horror.

  Nichols looked at Claire. “I am so sorry.”

  “Hufflepuff who won’t bother me, huh?” Claire muttered, angrily shuffling across the bench to make room. Luce probably would have sat on her fucking lap without a care. “Why did it take so long with you then?”

  “It told me I should be a Gryffindor because I’m Australian.” Luce shot Nichols a suspicious look before turning back to Claire. “That’s almost more racist than you hating on my muggleborn mother. I told it to put me in Slytherin.”

  Nichols looked confused. “You chose Slytherin over Gryffindor?”

  Claire was surprised he didn’t pick up on the muggleborn mother bit.

  Luce looked more confused than him. “Well yeah. Why would I want to be in the evil house?”

  “You are in the evil house.”

  Luce looked at him in despair. “What?” She turned to Claire. “What?!”

  “What did you think this was?” Claire asked her, almost amused.

  “The red house is red! Like blood? Obviously they want to spill it.”

  “I don’t think they cared about semantics when choosing the houses, Luce. Maybe Godric just liked red.”

  “Well they should have cared. I was conned! Lied to! I thought this was the smart house!”

  “There’s a reason that wasn’t an option for you.” Claire sighed.

  Nichols shook his head. “That’s Ravenclaw.”

  “Goddammit! I don’t even look good in green!”

  Nichols looked at Luce incredulously. “What’s your blood status?”

  Apparently Nicols wasn’t the smartest person in the Hall. Luce had already mentioned having a muggleborn mother. Just because they weren’t in the designated ‘smart house’ didn’t mean they had to be dumb, come on.

  “Not this fucking question again!” Luce exclaimed. “What, you gonna be racist too? Is there a racist dictionary I don’t know about? What’s with the questionnaire? My blood type is O!”

  Nichols had never looked more uncomfortable. “I think you asked all the questions. So are you a muggle-born then?”

  “No, dickhead , my dad’s a wizard, my mum’s a witch, whether they’re muggle born or not is none of your business.”

  At least Luce had learned not to profess the fact her mother was a muggleborn to everyone around her. If only she could learn some common manners too, then she might just survive.

  “What’s your last name?” Nichols asked.

  Luce was steadily growing more annoyed with the unfortunate boy who really just needed to shut his mouth. “It was just read out, do you not pay attention or something?!”

  Claire decided to interject when the argument looked like it was only going to spiral. People had started looking in their direction, annoyed.

  “Luce Hamza, pureblood father, discussion closed, let’s move on.” Claire didn’t need to mention Luce’s muggleborn mother, nor infer her father was a blood traitor. She had already been noticed to have affiliation with the girl. She’d be dragging her own name down more than Luce’s. And Luce didn’t even care about that sort of thing in the first place.

  “Potter, Harry!” Professor McGonagall called, immediately sending ripples of whispers across the hall and saving the three Slytherins from much continued drama. Luce didn’t need to angrily add in her mother’s blood status, therefore dooming herself and Claire in death by association.

  Claire heard “ Potter did she say?” and “ The Harry Potter?” and “The Boy Who Lived?”

  “He’s really famous, isn’t he?” Luce grumbled.

  “How do you not know who Potter is?” Malfoy leaned across the table.

  “She’s more concerned with Australian politics, as it’s her home country.” Claire attempted to smooth over. She doubted Luce knew the first thing of Australian politics either, but neither would Malfoy, so Luce could say all the random shit her heart desired about it and no one would know better to correct her.

  “Your bestie?” Luce looked disinterested. “When are we getting food?”

  Malfoy looked disgusted. “Potter’s already been corrupted by Weasley. He refused my friendship.”

  There went Claire’s hopes of rekindling an alliance with Potter. And if he had refused Malfoy, and been corrupted by Weasley already …

  Claire turned back to the Boy Who Lived. She supposed it should have been a given that such a notable figure would go to Gryffindor. If he continued to hang around Weasleys, he’d stay out of high-ranking politics, however. That family wasn’t capable of moving high up.

  “GRYFFINDOR!” The Hat eventually shouted, exactly like Claire had predicted.

  The Gryffindor table erupted in cheers. Oh, to have fame and be sorted into a house full of popular jocks.

  Dumbledore’s great idea of a speech, after everyone had been sorted, was firing out four random words before sitting down. The entire hall burst into applause and cheers like he had said something more impressive than “nitwit” “blubber” “oddment” and “tweak”. Maybe Claire just didn’t speak madness. Unfortunately her tutors didn’t teach her that language growing up. What a vital piece of her education lost.

  The feast made up for Dumbledore’s madness, however. Plates piled to an almost overflowing state of roast beef, roast chicken, pork and lamb chops, sausages, bacon, steak, boiled potatoes, roast potatoes, fries, Yorkshire puddings, peas, carrots, gravy, ketchup, and peppermint humbugs. She had no idea why peppermint humbugs were there, but decided it was probably best not to ask.

  Dessert too, was a magnificent affair. Blocks of ice cream in every flavour, apple pie, treacle tarts, chocolate eclairs, jam doughnuts, trifles, strawberries, Jell-O and rice puddings lined the tables.

  When the desserts disappeared, Dumbledore got to his feet and Professor Dumbledore stood up, effectively silencing the hall.

  “Ahem — just a few more words now that we are all fed and watered. I have a few start-of-term notices to give you.”

  Claire really hoped these start-of-term notices and ‘few words’ wouldn’t be random nonsense. She was too tired for that.

  “First years should note that the forest on the grounds is forbidden to all pupils. And a few of our older students would do well to remember that as well.”

  “That means people have done it.” Luce muttered to Claire. “Which means we can do it.”

  Claire actually needed to come up with a valid excuse to dissuade Luce away from the forest, it seemed. She couldn’t just ward her off anymore. Luce was in Slytherin. Luce would continue to be Claire’s problem.

  “You got startled by Hagrid knocking on the door.” Claire whispered back. “We’re not going to the forest.”

  “No I didn’t!”

  “I was there, don’t gaslight me.”

  “I have also been asked by Mr. Filch, the caretaker, to remind you all that no magic should be used between classes in the corridors.” Dumbledore continued.

  “Only illegal if we get caught.” Luce said cheerfully.

  “No.”

  “Quidditch trials will be held in the second week of term. Anyone interested in playing for their house teams should contact Madam Hooch.”

  Luce perked up. “Ooh!”

  Nichols leaned over. “You have to be at least in second year to try out. First years aren’t allowed their own brooms.”

  Luce deflated. “That’s such a stupid rule.”

  Nichols nodded.

  “And finally, I must tell you that this year, the third-floor corridor on the right-hand side is out of bounds to anyone who does not wish to die a most painful death.”

  “Is he joking?” Claire asked Nichols, alarmed. What kind of school was this?

  Nichols frowned. “Probably not. He’s mad, but I thought he’d give a reason.”

  “Dying a most painful death seems reason enough.”

  “Well yeah, but how you’re gonna die that painful death and why the source is there should be explained.”

  It wasn’t.

  “And now before we go to bed, let us sing the school song!” Dumbledore cried, flicking his wand as if to get a fly off and thus shooting out a long piece of gold ribbon that rose up into the sky and twisted into words.

  “He’s kidding.” Claire scanned the ‘lyrics’. “That is our school song?”

  “Yup.” Nichols didn’t look all that pleased either.

  “I gave up going to Durmstrang or Beauxbatons for this .” Claire stared at the golden words in horror. This had to be a joke. This could not be right. The greatest school of witchcraft and wizardry could not have this massacre of poetry as their school song.

  “Everyone pick their favourite tune and off we go!” Dumbledore’s all-too-cheerful voice grated on Claire’s ears. She wanted to go to bed not sing Hoggy Warty Hogwarts .

  ‘Pick your favourite tune’ Dumbledore said. There would not be a set tune, nor rhythm or melodic quantities. There would be brash, uncouth clashing noises.

  “You’re an idiot.” Nichols told Claire as the school started bellowing the song, all out of tune and so much more horrible than Claire could conjure up in her worst nightmares.

  “Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts,

  Teach us something please,

  Whether we be old and bald

  Or young with scabby knees,

  Our heads could do with filling

  With some interesting stuff,

  For now they’re bare and full of air,

  Dead flies and bits of fluff,

  So teach us things worth knowing,

  Bring back what we’ve forgot, just do your best, we’ll do the rest,

  And learn until our brains all rot.”

  Everyone finished the song at different times. A pair of redheads who must have been Weasleys at the Gryffindor table finished last, singing along to a slow funeral march.

  Dumbledore conducted their last lines, then clapped the hardest.

  “Ah, music,” he said, wiping his eyes. “A magic beyond all we do here.”

  Claire gave him an incredulous look. That , music? That was noise . Calling that music was an insult to the entire music industry and gave all the students the hope that their no-tuned monstrosity of a song could be beautiful in any capability. It was a massacre to the ears, and to the name of music. It was the worst thing Claire had ever listened to in her life.

  “And now, bedtime. Off you trot!”

Chapter Text

  Claire’s plan when she got back to the Slytherin dormitories was to write a letter home to her parents informing them of her house so she wasn’t disowned by silence {they’d assume the worst if she said nothing}, make sure one of Hogawrts’ house elves washed and sorted her belongings accordingly, and go to sleep.

  Her roommates, however, had different ideas. Pansy and Daphne’s side eyes were not as subtle as they thought they were.

  Luce could obviously tell she was being subjected to examination, but to her credit, she elected to ignore the judgemental stares, focusing more on unpacking her trunk.

  “Luce Hamza, wasn’t it?” Daphne decided to approach the topic first. The question was more to engage — or trap — Luce in a conversation, more than an actual inquiry. Luce had been the topic of much discussion through the upper circles for a few weeks. Claire suspected that after their encounter with Malfoy on the train, he would have reported back on Luce’s strangeness, opening the concept of her up again for scrutiny.

  “Yup. What was your name again?”

  “Greengrass. Daphne Greengrass.” She put that emphasis on her last name like a title. Luce could clearly not care less. Claire only hoped she wouldn’t be so blatantly disrespectful about it, at least not while she was associated with Claire and her future advancements.

  “I’m sure you’d have heard of me.” Pansy flicked her hair over her shoulder, chest puffed out with importance. “Right, Hamza?”

  Luce looked lost. “Are you another one of those celebrities that I’m apparently stupid and uneducated for not knowing about? Because I’m — ”

  “Tired of telling everyone you’re more preoccupied with Australian politics.” Claire was tired of that being her main excuse. It wasn’t even a foolproof excuse. If Luce was going to continue being Claire’s problem — and it looked like she was going to be — she needed to be educated . “As your father is high in their hierarchy. Yes. But you’re delighted to have the opportunity to be educated by myself, Daphne Greengrass, and Pansy Parkinson.”

  Luce looked like she wanted to strangle Claire. Claire stared Luce down. She just needed to agree. She just needed to conceal the fact her mother was a muggleborn. It didn’t need to be brought up in conversation, and if it was, no one would deeply investigate her lie so long as she did not give them reason to seek blackmail on her.

  Daphne and Pansy would tire of Luce’s ignorance faster than Claire had, and they had the luxury of being able to easily sway from Luce’s company. Claire’s promise of the three educating their roommate was simply one of establishing their names. As long as Luce did not have a short term memory loss when it came to names, and as long as the topic of Luce’s mother’s blood status did not come up, and as long as the conversation ended shortly and with Claire in semi to complete control over the topics of choice the entirety of the time, all would be fine for tonight.

  Easy.

  Claire needed to make sure everyone went to bed quickly.

  “It would be an honour.” Luce said through gritted teeth.

  “Of course it would.” Pansy agreed, face rich with superiority. “I suppose I am a celebrity of sorts. Wouldn’t you say, Claire?”

  Claire would honestly say that Pansy wasn’t as important as she made herself out to be, and her attitude and self importance could be highly annoying.

  “Your father is quite influential.” Claire smiled diplomatically.

  “Of course he is.” Pansy dismissed before her focus narrowed to the contents of Luce’s trunk. “Are those … muggle clothes?”

  Everyone’s eyes fixed on the very-obviously-muggle clothes spilling out of Luce’s trunk.

  “Yeah.” Luce said, completely unbothered.

  Daphne and Pansy both looked repulsed. Claire made desperate cut it out, shut up motions at Luce, who just looked back in confusion.

  “Why on earth would you have muggle clothes in your trunk?” Daphne demanded.

  “Oh my God, you girls will never believe what happened to me.” Claire shoved her trunk away dramatically. “One of those Gryffindor mudblood first year thieves decided to invade our compartment and go through all my belongings!”

  “You poor thing.” Daphne cried as Pansy gagged and clutched her trunk close to herself protectively at the very thought. Daphne immediately fished out a pair of silk green pajamas and offered them to Claire. “Wear these for tonight and we’ll get the house elves to clean your things, fresh for tomorrow.”

  “Thank you.” Claire accepted the borrowed pajamas with exaggerated gratitude. She had set up the perfect distraction and excuse for Luce, should the conversation circle back to dangerous waters. The mudblood thief must have left her own things infected with their pure possessions .

  “Of course.” Daphne said empathetically. “We can’t have some dirty creature contaminating us now, can we?”

  Claire shook her head, heart racing. Luce had revealed her mother’s less-than-pure blood status for less insults towards mudbloods. Luce looked like she wanted to speak up now, confused and annoyed at the continuance of the mudblood-hate.

  Daphne looked over at Luce. “That lowlife didn’t go through your belongings, did she?”

  “No.” Luce slammed her trunk shut again. “My mother enchanted my trunk so no one could go through it.”

  “That seems like a useful spell.” Pansy looked instantly interested. “I haven’t heard of it.”

  “She invented it when she was at Hogwarts. She said prejudiced snakes who just wanted to hurt muggleborns kept going through her and her friend’s stuff.”

  Claire wanted to crawl under her bed and hide.

  Pansy and Daphne froze.

  “Your mother is a mudblood?” Pansy asked slowly.

  Luce looked like she’d only just realised she’d messed up.

  “Her father is still very influential in the Australian political circles.” Claire interjected before Luce could dig herself a deeper hole. “Enough so that she was invited to the gathering the Malfoys hosted.”

  Playing the Malfoys’ gathering card was quite sneaky of Claire. She was quite proud of it actually. Because if they continued to protest Luce’s lesser status, they were now inferring that their judgement was somehow greater than Lucius Malfoy’s.

  Pansy and Daphne could almost immediately see what Claire had done.

  “I suppose her being a half-blood is not … that lesser.” Daphne looked uncertainly at Pansy. “She at least has some purity.”

  Pansy hmphed. She clearly didn’t want to let this issue go, if her continuous judgemental stare was any indication.

  Claire breathed a little easier. It hadn’t gone as terribly as she had feared. She still needed to educate Luce, but her blood status would not, it seemed, be her downfall as of yet.

  It was quiet for a while.

  “How is your brother, Pansy?” Daphne asked, once again initiating a conversation. “He seemed unwell earlier today.”

  “He is fine.” Pansy snapped. “Some attention was taken from him on my departure, but I am sure all is back to normal now, with him being at home. The sole focus of our parents’ love and time.”

  “I know what you mean.” Daphne sighed. “Marcus is young, of course, and he and Astoria get along well, but it is never quite the same.”

  Claire nodded. “Antoine said he would be sad to see me leave like our elder siblings, but I am sure our parents will dote on him enough to make sure he is not too lonely.”

  “He’s the second heir though, is he not?” Daphne asked. “You have another brother, at Durmstrang?”

  “Maël.” Claire nodded. “He’s in his last year, so there is obvious excitement.”

  Pansy and Daphne nodded.

  “Uhh, do you have any siblings?” Daphne looked uncertainly at Luce.

  “One.” Luce said, guarded. “A younger brother.”

  “Your father’s heir.” Daphne nodded at Pansy, who rolled her eyes.

  “No, I’m my father’s heir.” Luce would likely never shake that look of confusion she wore so well.

  Except now the other three girls were wearing identical looks of confusion too.

  “I’m older.” Luce added. “And he’s kinda a retard anyway.”

  “But he’ll be educated.” Pansy scrunched a garment of clothing in her fist. “And he’ll take over your father’s inheritance.”

  Luce shook her head. “No, he won in rock-paper-scissors. Now I have to be responsible. And do maths .”

  “Wait.” Claire turned to face the half-blood better. “You’re getting your father’s inheritance?”

  “Yes?”

  “And you’re annoyed about it?”

  “Yeah? I have to do maths .”

  Luce would have a downfall, after all.

* * *

  Potter got a ridiculous amount of attention in every aspect of his school life.

  From people staring at him and pointing and whispering when he entered the Great Hall, to teachers literally falling over themselves when they realised he was on their roll. Had they not been there when his name was called out? Obviously he was going to be there!

  Slytherins and Gryffindors, fortunately, didn’t have many classes together on pains of civil war. Prejuiced jocks. Not every Slytherin was evil. They simply had the class the self-absorbed lions had never been able to taste. Or even afford, in the Weasleys’ case.

  Luce was also an unqualified disaster when it came to class. The very obviously muggle blood she carried quickly became apparent, with how inept she was at magic {even if it was only theory at the moment} and how disinterested she was to learn it. Seriously, if she spent any more time with those small hard parchments of hers, butchering her handwriting with that quill she’d become one.

  Pansy and Daphne had probably never hated a person more than they hated Luce. They sat at the Slytherin table, completely ignoring Luce’s presence, while telling everyone within a ten-person radius who would listen that Luce Hamza was a disgusting muddied half-blood with no self-respect.

  Claire was upset Luce was getting her father’s inheritance too, but Pansy and Daphne’s comments felt a bit much. It was clear the inheritance issue was the root cause of it, and perhaps Claire was less sensitive about the issue — she had three older siblings. She was never going to get a share of her father’s money. Pansy and Daphne’s parents had tried again for a male heir and neither girl was oblivious to this fact. So to hear Luce, an eldest daughter, was getting the fortune in place of her younger brother would have hit closer to their situation than Claire’s.

  But the constant shittalking of Luce was really wearing Claire down.

  She didn’t contribute, not after Pansy and Daphne escalated it out of proportion. So it annoyed her when Luce was routinely escorted away from the Slytherin table by her Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw friends, and then never made an effort to talk with Claire. Claire had even seen her talking with Gryffindors. Luce was choosing bloody Gryffindors over her. So much for loyalty and friendship.

 Pansy and Daphne were better company anyway. And they actually knew important celebrities, like Harry Potter, and proper pureblood customs.

  She didn’t get an explanation into Luce’s distance until Thursday night, five days after they’d arrived at Hogwarts.

  Could it be considered Thursday still, if it was at midnight? Claire wasn’t sure, but that wasn’t exactly her biggest concern. No, that was Luce fiddling with the door like she was going to leave. At midnight. Luce, who had frequently expressed a desire to visit the Forbidden Forest. Leaving. At midnight.

  “What are you doing?”

  Luce jumped slightly, but regained posture remarkably quickly for a halfblood. “Finding this third floor corridor.” she snarked, glancing back at Claire and then opening the door, as if dismissing her.

  Claire almost fell out of her bed. Which was saying something, considering it was big enough for her to lay horizontally and not touch the ends.

  “The one Dumbledore specifically told us not to go to because we’d die a horrible painful death?”

  Luce just stepped through the door in response and slipped out.

  Fuck Luce. Fuck Luce and her desire to do dangerous shit. Seriously, she should have been made a Gryffindor.

  Claire looked at the open door, then longingly at the green and silver bed sheets that were so warm and comforting and honestly Luce had made her point, she didn’t want to hang around Claire, she didn’t owe her anything —

  Someone, that was probably Luce, made a clattering sound somewhere not quite far enough away for Claire to convince herself it was too late to catch up to her. That girl was going to get herself killed.

  “You owe me so much.” Claire muttered darkly as she kicked the covers off and snatched her silk dressing gown up, tying it around her waist as she stumbled over to join the idiot trying to get herself killed.

  “Going by yourself is a stupid idea.” Claire hissed when she caught up with Luce just outside the Slytherin common room. “Going in general is stupid, but especially by yourself, are you ins — ”

  “Who am I supposed to do it with then?” Luce stormed forward. “Certainly not you .”

  Claire gawked after her. “Why not?”

  “Why would you? We’re not friends .”

  Claire struggled to match Luce’s fast pace. “What do you mean we’re not friends?”

  Luce stopped dead to stare at her like she couldn’t believe Claire could have the audacity to say something so ludicrous.

  “You’ve been treating me like shit ever since you found out my mother is a muggleborn.” Luce growled, finally facing her. 

  Claire stared at her, flabbergasted. She’d been so nice about it! Luce had been the one ditching her !

  “What are you talking about?” Claire demanded.

  Luce scoffed. “I can’t believe you. Just because I’ve got a ‘lesser’ blood status — what’s that got to do with anything anyway?”

  Claire shook her head in disbelief. “ ‘What does blood status have to do with anything?’ Blood status is everything . It’s always been important. The fact that you don’t even know that is — ”

  “Why?” Luce interrupted. “Why does it matter so much?”

  “That’s just how it is!” Claire couldn’t believe this was such a foreign concept to Luce, not when it had been preached at her her entire childhood. “Mudbloods stole magic from us pureblood, and muggles would hunt us down and kill us for this magic — ”

  “That’s the biggest load of bull I’ve ever heard.” Luce spat and started running forward down the corridor before Claire could even argue her case.

  “You’re going to get yourself killed!”

  “What do you care?” Luce shouted back without turning to look at Claire. “I’m only a halfblood!”

  How was Claire the bad guy here?! She was being all worried for Luce’s safety — when she was endangering both of them, mind you — but no . Luce was the innocent victim and Claire was an asshole.

  Luce disappeared behind a corner and her footsteps quickly faded away.

  Claire scoffed and looked around, faltering when she realised she had absolutely no idea where she was. It was dark and she was cold and she was so very lost and it was all Luce’s fault really. Claire had tried to be all noble and everything, risking her own neck to try and talk sense into this Gryffindor-coded girl who was so eager to get herself killed. And then she’d probably blame it on Claire because Claire was a ‘bad friend’ and ‘racist’ and ‘an asshole’. Just because Luce didn’t have the proper education, or didn’t realise she should just listen to people of higher blood status does not make her, Claire Belstring, an asshole.

  Claire stamped her foot. It echoed far too loudly and creepily on hallways that seemed to loom down at her eerily.

  “Stupid, stupid, stupid.” Claire chanted. She was going to get all hot and sweaty running through this stupid creepy castle after her stupid roommate who thought she was a purist asshole. She really, really should just prove Luce right and go to bed, but apparently she wasn’t going to do that.

  Her footsteps threw harsh sounding echoes against the walls. The shadows made the castle look more like a psychopath’s lair to kill bad pureblood children, rather than a school she could learn magic in.

  “You’re going to get me killed!” Claire hollared as soon as she saw Luce’s back, after a very long period of running that Claire did not appreciate. She hated running. But no, of course she was still an asshole best friend, even after this.

  “Then leave!” Luce shouted.

  “Don’t tell me what to do!” Claire yelled, very childishly, then proceeded to almost fall over Filch’s stupid cat Mrs. Norris.

  She managed to save herself at the last moment, and fell over her feet instead of a stupid tabby cat with supersonic hearing that could summon her master out of thin air.

  “I told you you’d get us caught!” Claire screamed. Making more noise was probably not the smartest thing to do, but that was Luce’s fault for getting her into this situation in the first place.

  “You’re going to get me caught.” Luce hissed, but she doubled back to drag Claire up and tried to open the nearest {and only} door. Naturally it was locked.

  “Well, magic girl?” Luce banged on the wood. “Got some spell to open it?”

  Claire decided to be the bigger person and draw her wand to open the door instead of arguing with this impossible person and thus getting them both caught.

  “Alohomora!”

  The lock clicked open. Luce grabbed the handle and pulled it open enough for the two to get around and slam the door closed.

  “That spell sounded like a Hawaiian greeting.” Luce rolled her eyes.

  “Shut — the fuck — up.” Claire bent over double trying to catch her breath. Wow this floor looked so inviting right now to just … collapse on … maybe go to sleep and never wake up … god forbid she had to do exercise ever again … Luce could go fuck herself next time.

  “Ohh.” Luce’s voice said above Claire’s head.

  “What?” Claire panted harshly.

  “That’s a big dog.”

  Claire briefly paused. “What?”

  It wasn’t until Luce said “Dogs aren’t meant to have three heads right?” that Claire looked up.

  At first, all she saw was four normal {albeit very very large} dog legs standing on a weird, probably very suspicious trapdoor.

  Then she looked up more and oh. Oh .

  Unless Claire was having a joint hallucination with Luce, or her eyes were deceiving her, there in fact was a large, three headed dog leering down at her, body filling the entire space between floor and roof. Three mouths, all drooling and filled with sharp teeth, each the size of Claire’s arm. Six rolling, mad eyes fixed on the innocent girl in front of it and Luce. 

  Those growls didn’t sound friendly.

  “Did I hit my head or does that thing want to eat us?” Claire asked weakly, trying desperately to feel for the doorknob behind her.

  “You’ve hit your head.” Luce said instantly, which actually made Claire relax a little bit, until the half-blooded prick added, “Or else you wouldn’t be seen with someone lesser like me!”

  “Not the time!” Claire really wanted to shove her at the dog and scream take her, spare me!

  “WHAT?! DOES THE DOG HAVE PURER BLOOD THAN ME?!”

  Claire found the doorknob and pulled on it so hard she was terrified she was going to pull it straight off. 

  “I HATE YOU!” 

  “You can’t hate someone beneath you!”

  Luce shoved her through the door, resulting in Claire falling hard onto the ground for the second time in about five minutes {her clothes were going to be ruined }.

  Hilariously enough, and for the first and last time ever in her life, Luce ended up on top of Claire. Physically. When she fell on top of Claire trying to get out.

  The monstrosity of the dog barked hard enough to shake the castle and probably wake everyone inhabiting it. Claire frantically kicked out to shut the door behind them, dislodging a disgruntled Luce from her jerky movements.

  The door slammed shut before the dog-Cerberus-thing could escape.

  “We need to get out of here.” Claire managed, scrambling backwards. “Or the — the professors’ll come. I — think they heard.”

  “What, you don’t want to be seen with someone lesser, like me?” Luce taunted.

  Claire glared at her. “I don’t want to be seen around that dog after curfew!”

  Luce didn’t have a good retort to that. Or, if she did, Claire didn’t hear it, nor did she want to. She’d allow herself to do a bit more exercise today, in her own self interest. It was ridiculous that running was going to help her, but run she did, all the way back to the Slytherin common room. She didn’t look back to see if Luce was following her, but she assumed the footsteps she was hearing was her. Or you know, it was going to be a murderer running after her. Claire wouldn’t be surprised anymore, not after seeing that Cerberus-three-headed-dog-thing.

  Claire only relaxed when she was back in her dormitory, if throwing herself down on her bed and immediately hiding under the covers like a five year old child counted as ‘relaxing’.

  “That was fun.” Luce said outside in the exposed dormitory, in far too cheerful of a tone for what she had put Claire through.

  Claire poked her head out from under the covers long enough to say three words, then retreated back to safety. “No, it wasn’t.”

  Luce huffed. “Sure. Would’ve been fun if you were with someone better , or higher , like Puggy Pansy, huh?”

  “It would have been fun if I wasn’t about to get killed.” Claire snapped.

  “Yeah sure.”

  Claire took a deep breath. Whether it was to control her emotions, or as preparation for what she was going to say she didn’t know.

  “I don’t think you’re lesser.”

  “Prove it.” Luce hissed back.

  Claire didn’t know why she tried, at this point. Luce wasn’t happy with anything she said, was she?

  She looked down at herself in dismay. Her clothes were torn and smeared with mud and dust, and her skin wasn’t in any better form.

  “I suppose paying for the damages to my clothes is out of the question then?” Claire sulked.

  “I should have left you to the dog.” Luce murmured, yanking her bed sheets over her head.

Chapter Text

  Claire,

  We were pleased to hear of your appointance into Slytherin house, as a young lady of your standings should be. You must remember to uphold the Belstring name with honour. I sincerely hope I need not spell it out directly for you, after all the lessons we painstakingly gave to you over the course of your childhood, but either way — interact with esteemed purebloods only. You are not some commonplace beggar to associate with halfbreeds and mudbloods. Your name will give you a high standings, but your company will bring either pride or shame to yourself and by extension our family. Associate yourself with members of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. I hear of young Miss Pansy Parkinson and Miss Daphne Greengrass being your roommates? They would be good company, the right company. If we receive word of you hanging around Gryffindors, we will not be as lenient as Lord and Lady Black were. I am sure we have made this abundantly clear, but we will not risk a disappointment in the family.

  As the first to go to Hogwarts rather than Durmstrang, we hope you will set a good example. It is looking rather like Antoine will have to follow in your footsteps, rather than joining Maël and the twins at their school, he is still so sickly. You would be expected to take care of him, of course, and monitor his behaviour, so you must demonstrate the ability to do this now.

  Your Father and Mother,

  The Esteemed Lord and Lady of the Belstring Family

  Claire folded the letter. And again. And again.

  “Who’s that from?” Luce asked, mouth full of food. The exact type of person Claire’s parents would want her to avoid. The exact person Claire had just sworn to give a chance to, and try to be less assholeish to {because apparently that was a thing she was being}.

  “My parents.” Claire’s voice was clipped as she slid the letter carefully into her pocket.

  “Oh, damn, they have anything nice to say?” Luce had thus far received no less than six loving letters from her parents, all expressing their excitement on her behalf. Probably not warnings about how she had to hang around the right people or risk being disowned. Luce’s parents were weird like that.

  “Of course.” The letter was just a piece of parchment, probably one that her mother and father had a house elf write, but its implications were heavy.

  Luce looked suspicious. “You don’t look super stoked considering it’s the first you’ve heard from them — ”

  “My parents actually work .” Claire snapped. “And have jobs .”

  “My parents both work full time.” Luce looked confused.

  “It doesn’t mean they don’t care .” Claire continued, ignoring Luce’s worthless contribution. “They are my parents.”

  “Cool?” Luce questioned. “So what did they say? That you’re a bully?”

  “I’m not a bully. My parents don’t think I am either, because they care about me.”

  “I didn’t say they didn’t care!” Luce exclaimed. At Claire’s 

withering glare, she evidently decided it wasn’t worth it. “But I’ll shut up about your parents.”

  “Good.” Claire watched Luce attempt to subtly fold her own letter from her parents and hide it, no doubt filled with frivolous things like, asking about her studies, and friends, and if she was settling in well. Who even cares about such things? She should just be expected to do well in her studies, and of course she’d be settling in well, it was where she was meant to be. Stupid halfblood and her stupid attentive mudblood mother and disgraced pureblood father.

  Daphne leaned over. “Was the letter actually good?”

  Claire’s fingers brushed over her pocket. “Of course. They were pleased I was in Slytherin. Antoine might be joining me in four years.”

  Pansy looked surprised. “He’s not going to Durmstrang with the others?”

  “No.”

  Antoine’s weakness to dark magic was something the Belstrings did not like to talk about. As far as anyone was concerned, he had slight complications from being born prematurely and as the second — or spare — male heir, he was kept at home. They needed to take care that they would have another heir to keep the name, after all. It would not do good for their reputation to have a son who could not deal with magic. It would not do good to have a squib in the family.

  “My parents thought it better for him to have a sibling at school when he went.” Claire expanded. “Maël graduates this year, and Juliette and Elodie will graduate the year Antoine starts. I’ll be at school for another three years, so it’s only logical that he comes here.”

  “Who are those people?” Luce asked.

  Claire scrunched up her face at her lack of manners. She really, really needed to stop talking while eating, it was beneath her, and looked bad on Claire.

  “Maël, Juliette, Elodie and Antoine are my siblings.”

  “Huh. Weird names.”

  Claire grit her teeth. Luce was making this really really hard for her.

  “They are not .” She wasn’t supposed to get mad or yell and take up space. She was supposed to be composed and calm. “They are respectable pureblood names. Naturally, you wouldn’t know nor understand this.”

  Claire was not the one burning bridges here. Luce was lighting the match and expecting Claire to put it out while instituting that she was responsible. And not realizing it, apparently, as Luce continued talking.

  “Funny.” She murmured. “I have a younger brother, but he isn’t going to go to magic school at all.”

  Pansy scrunched up her face. Daphne looked mildly disgusted.

  “What is he, a squib?” Pancy groaned.

  Claire tried not to flinch.

  “No, he just wants to be an engineer, and he needs to go through muggle school to do that, so he’s gonna get taught magic at home.” Luce glared at Pansy.

  “He wants a muggle career?” Pansy demanded. “He might have magic, but he may as well be a squib.”

  Claire immediately grabbed Luce’s arm, sure the half blood was about to launch herself across the table to beat Pansy up.

  Instead, Luce stared at Pansy in a confusion that said, once again, she had no idea the simple terms used in their conversation.

  “What’s a squib?”

  Three words and Luce had the whole Slytherin table staring at her, some more subtly than others. Claire could see the question on all of their faces: “Who let the mudblood in?”

  Luce looked from their shocked and disgusted faces to Claire’s despairing one. “What’s a squib?” She repeated, stupidly, clearing having not received the hint that now was the time to laugh it off as a ludicrous question and leave the table with the remaining shreds of her self dignity.

  “A non magic person from a family of wizards.” Daphne explained kindly. “The opposite of a mudblood. They bring shame to their families and should be disowned to ensure the prosperity of their family name.”

  Luce turned to look at Pansy slowly. “You think that my brother is a squib and should therefore be disowned from my family to ensure it’s ‘purity’?”

  Pansy scrunched up her face. “There’s no saving your family. Your father mated with an animal , a mudblood .”

  Luce stared at Pansy for a few too many seconds, luring the table into a false sense of security, like it was over. Claire loosened her grip on Luce’s shoulder. Pansy smirked triumphantly. The rest of the table largely turned back to their previous conversations.

  Luce, for some godfucking reason, opened her mouth. “At least my father’s in a happy marriage and didn’t produce an ice blooded child. Wait, that was your parents.”

  The table exploded. Pansy turned so white she could have blended in with the surrounding ghosts. Daphne’s hands flew to cover her mouth. Claire had never been more mortified in her life.

  Luce looked initially surprised at the effect of the word, then smug and arrogant at the reaction.

  Pansy burst into tears, which would no doubt only spread the resulting rumours. “I’m not an ice blood!” she cried, desperately trying to defend herself. “I’m not !”

  “We know,” Daphne soothed. “The half-breed doesn’t know what she’s saying.” She shot a very angry look at Luce as she spoke.

  Luce opened her mouth to defend herself and Claire very nobly decided to cut all their losses.

  “You’re right, of course, Daphne.” Claire stood up, grabbing Luce’s arm as she did so and forcing the half-blood to stand with her. “Luce doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Pansy is perfectly fine. I will, uh, take Luce away before she says something else that will cause unnecessary trouble. Say you’re sorry, Luce.”

  Luce gave Claire a look that said she would rather die than apologise. Claire scowled at her.

  “On second thoughts.” Claire glanced at what felt like the entirety of the Hall watching her. “We can’t possibly trust her to open her mouth. She’s leaving now. Come.”

  Claire had to all but drag Luce out of the suddenly very large and long hall and down the corridors which were oddly bursting with people, to the nearest abandoned classroom.

  “What were you thinking ?!” Claire hissed. “Calling her an — that word in front of the Hall?!”

  “I don’t know what it means.” Luce admitted.

  “Of course you don’t know what it means! Of course you’ll say it anyway. You’d better hope that rumour gets squashed. Her parents will kill her for bringing disgrace to their family name, and even if they don’t, no respectable wizard will want her if he thinks she’s an iceblood — she’ll be cast out and made to live as a muggle.”

  Luce looked like she liked that idea, or in fact didn’t see anything wrong with it. Of course she wouldn’t. Her mother was a mudblood, she saw nothing wrong with living with muggles.

  “What’s an iceblood then anyway?” Luce asked instead, probably sensing some form of the danger voicing that opinion.

  “It means you’re infertile. Can’t have kids.”

  Luce waited. “That’s it?”

  “That’s — ” Claire gaped at her. “What do you mean ‘that’s it’?”

  She shrugged. “I thought it’d be something worse than that for the way everyone reacted.”

  Claire struggled to not murder Luce on the spot.

  She doesn’t know, she had to remind herself. Her mother’s a mudblood. Her father clearly doesn’t abide by the traditional way of doing things.

  Educating Luce on the ways in which a proper pureblood lady was to hold herself and her value seemed the worst job in the world.

  “A pureblood girl has one main role she has to fulfill. She is to marry a rich, respectable pureblood man and bear his children. If she cannot do this, she is of no worth.”

  Luce looked disgusted. “What is this, the 1700s? That’s so fucking stupid.”

  “That’s just how it is.” Claire said frustratedly.

  “So what, you can’t get a job? What’s the point of educating women anymore, let’s just marry them off at seven shall we?” The sarcasm in the question couldn’t hide the disbelief at the whole situation.

  “Women can get jobs. Just, she needs to have heirs to carry on the name. So implying Pansy can’t have those children — ” Claire shook her head. “It’s bad .”

  “Does that mean I should feel bad then? Cause at the moment, everyones reactions are like a reward.”

  “Do you want a list ?! What did Pansy even do to you?”

  “Do you want a list?” Luce shot back. “She keeps fucking with my room, leaving mud in my mattress every night, none of you will even talk to me. If I have to walk through these halls calling everyone icebloods, so be it! I’m coming for all your bloodlines, you’d better watch out.”

  “You can’t do that!”

  “Watch me, bitch. You wanna know what those letters from my parents were about? They wanted to transfer me out because I was getting bullied. Was . But not anymore! I have risen , the bullied becomes the bully!”

  The bell rang before Claire could string together words that would make some form of sense.

  “We have to go to potions.” Claire shot Luce a glare. “We’ll continue this conversation later.”

* * *

  Claire had to be partnered with Luce in potions.

  Pansy’s eyes were red, and she refused to talk to Luce, not even sparing a glance in her direction. Daphne was busy soothing Pansy, but in between sentences of kindly wrapped asurances, she’d glare at Luce, then sometimes at Claire. How was Claire at fault for this? She’d dragged Luce away before anything else could escalate!

  Luce didn’t seem to find the obvious tension a problem at all. In fact, when she’d entered the classroom she received no less than three thumbs up from Gryffindors. It seemed rumors had spread swifter than Claire had anticipated, if it had gotten to the lions of all people. 

  Snape, after humiliating the shit out of Potter for no good reason other than it brought him pleasure, did not seem amused by Luce’s contribution to the classrooms energy, nor how she revealed that it was Potter who had purchased all the sweets on the train to Hogwarts that had resulted in mass classroom outrage.

  To make matters worse, Claire was the only one between Luce and her actually trying to do their potion correctly . It would have been fine — annoying, yes, but expected and fine — if Luce had just sat back and done nothing. Claire could have the potion finished easily. It was a simple potion. Her tutors had made her do much more complex potions growing up.

  But no. Luce just had to find an ingredient interesting and throw it in the potion, regardless of whether it was time for that particular thing yet, or even if it was on the recipe.

  “So are we gonna continue the conversation.” Luce asked casually, throwing in yet another wrong ingredient, an avocado peel? Seriously?

  “No!” Claire hissed, trying desperately to salvage it. It was fine, it was fine, she just needed to add a dash of this … a flick of her wand here … “Not right now — would you stop throwing random — random stuff in our cauldron?”

  Luce, whether it was the accident she claimed it to be or just to spite Claire, flung a beetle’s eye into the cauldron. I didn’t realise it was there, it freaked me out yeah yeah, Luce just hated Claire bossing her around. Claire wasn’t a fool.

  “How do you know how to neutralise it?” Luce asked around a viciously bubbling potion of honestly-Merlin-knows-what-anymore.

  “My tutors.” Claire responded stiffly, crushing a stick of cinnamon and holding her breath.

  “Cinnamon?” Luce looked at her incredulously. “How is cinnamon better than the Beatles eye?”

  “At this point, I’m trying anything to fix your mistakes.” Claire snapped. “And if the Beatles’ eyes are so great, shove them in your mouth instead of the cauldron.”

  “Ouch.” Luce said, not sounding at all offended. To her credit, she was quiet and let Claire work for a full minute. She was capable of shutting up for a whole sixty seconds. It had to be a record.

  “So, do you know if there’s any potions that mirror, like, a tattoo?”

  “You’re not giving yourself a tattoo.” Claire squinted at the potion. Was it supposed to be that shade?

  “I’m just curious .” Luce whined.

  Claire brushed her hair out of her face and picked up the horned slugs, frowning at them. “I mean, there’s obviously the, you know,” she lowered her voice “dark mark tattoo. Which is said to have been a spell.”

  “What’s the dark mark?”

  Claire angrily motioned for her to keep her voice down, almost flinging the dead slug in Luce’s face. “The Dark Lord’s symbol. You know who that is, surely? It’s said he branded his followers with a mark. So I suppose he’d have made up the spell for that.”

  “Do you know the spell?” Luce asked, far too interested.

  “Do I look like I’d know the spell? I was an infant when he fell, and it’s a taboo subject now.”

  “Oh.” Luce watched Claire add a horned slug, then hastily retract when the potion bubbled dangerously. “Are there any other spells? Just for general, non-evil use.”

  Claire held her breath as she scraped leftover crushed fangs into the cauldron. The potions frothed more and let off coloured pearls of steam. Claire backed away slowly, but the potion steadied itself after a few anxious seconds.

  “So? Spells for tattoos?” Luce prompted.

  Claire, exasperated, slammed the slugs down and glared at her. “Why are you so interested?”

  “I’m just curious.” Luce retreated a couple of steps away.

  Claire sighed and turned back to the potion. Adding the other three slugs, one at a time, she said softly, “Stigmata.”

  Luce perked up. “What?”

  “Stigmata.” Claire repeated. “Most spells are in Latin. Stigmata is Latin for ‘tattoo’. It’s a difficult spell, I’m told, not something you’d be able to do.”

  “That hurt.” Luce did sound offended at that. “What, cause my mother’s — ”

  Claire dropped the last slug in the cauldron. “It’s, like, a third year spell. That’s why you wouldn’t be able to do it.” She looked up at Luce, then away quickly. “Unless you want me to insult your mother. I’d be more than willing to do that.”

  “Don’t.”

  Claire almost smiled. “Put the porcupine quills in the cauldron once I’ve — ”

  Luce didn’t wait to hear the condition. She put the quills straight in the cauldron.

  “Shit!” Claire yelped. That alone was enough to cause an irredeemable explosion, but that coupled with the other threatened disasters meant there was absolutely no saving this stupid potion and it was going to explode painful boils on both of them.

  She grabbed Luce’s arm on instinct and practically threw them onto the ground, just in time for two — two? — potions to simultaneously explode.

  When the initial explosion upward was done, Claire dragged herself and her stupid idiotic potions partner up. She nudged their stools away from the rapidly spilling potion and quickly stood on hers. Luce looked confused until she noticed the potion spilling across the floor and the kids hastily backing away from it, yelping and shrieking as it melted through their shoes. Luce followed Claire’s lead quickly, knocking their own cauldron straight with her toes to avoid it spilling before it could be noticed.

  Some other Gryffindor pair close by them, Longbottom and Finnigan, Claire thought, had been the cause of the other explosion, and the former boy had not been so lucky as to escape the disaster. He had very obviously been drenched in the potion when the cauldron had dissolved into a twisted blob of remains. Those red boils did not look friendly.

  Snape, naturally, did not make matters any better.

  “Idiot boy!” he snarled, clearing the spilled potions away with one wave of his wand. “I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?”

  Claire not-so-subtly glared at Luce, who had the graces to look slightly ashamed.

  “You told me to add the quills.” Luce hissed as Snape told Longbottom’s partner to take him to the hospital wing before rounding on Potter.

  “ After I took it off the fire.” Claire snapped back, careful to keep her voice low. If they could blame their mishap on Longbottom’s, maybe they just wouldn’t fail their first ever class. “I was about to tell you to wait .”

  “Belstring and Hamza.” Snape said coldly. “May I see your potion?”

  Or maybe Luce half-breed Hamza would, after all, make Claire look like a complete fool in front of the whole class over a potion she’d been doing for two years.

  “Yes sir.” Claire said quietly, stepping down from her stool. Fruitless excuses formed in her head. Her parents would slaughter her if she failed her first potions class. Maybe it was time to offer Luce to the gods for her own safety.

  Snape’s cold face flicked with a shadow of surprise. “This …” He stopped and turned to survey the two girls.

  “Full marks.” He turned to the class. “ This is what the potion is supposed to look like. This is the excellence that might just prove this class worth teaching. Twenty points to Slytherin.” He looked at Potter with a sneer. “I would expect you especially, Potter, to pay close attention. Perhaps you could learn from these girls’ examples.”

  Snape nodded at them again, glared at Potter, then strode away to survey other potions. 

  “How did you — ” Claire looked at Luce in disbelief. “That exploded, how — ”

  “Don’t question our victory.” Luce told her, very firmly. “We’re just that good.”

  Claire gave up. “We are.”

* * *

  The mudblood Granger was not the first to find and confront them in the hallways after potions, nor would she be the last.

  She was, however, the first to question them in such a rude and bossy tone of voice, implying that she didn’t find them capable {Claire was a pureblood who had done these potions before} and that she was so much more so {she was a mudblood who didn’t know magic existed until she got her letter}.

  “I can’t believe you got such a high grade on your potion.” She told them in a tone of voice that said exactly that. “How did you do that? I mean, I was sure I followed the text book right but — ”

  Claire sneered. “Because I have obviously purer blood, therefore more magical talent and — ”

  “I threw random shit into the cauldron.” Luce interrupted. At Claire’s nasty glare, she somewhat-reluctantly added, “Claire had to neutralise it to prevent explosions.”

  “You — what? You can’t do that! You need to follow the instructions in the textbook, they’re there for a reason, and — ”

  “I don’t,” Claire cut her off snidely, “however, need to listen to your infuriating know-it-all voice anymore. Goodbye.”

  Granger looked at Luce like she would help, but Luce just waved mockingly. Granger huffed very loudly and in a very undignified manner, turned on her heel and left.

  “You didn’t need to bring blood purity into it.” Luce offered.

  “Whatever.” Claire scrunched up her face. “She was being an annoying mudblood.”

  Luce looked like she wanted to argue her point further, but saw the fruitlessness of it and decided to argue later.

  That ‘later’ did not come that day. Nor the next, which was greeted by Pansy’s scream at an ungodly time of the morning.

  “What’s the matter?” Daphne demanded, half falling out of bed trying to get out and brushing sleep from her eyes.

  Claire didn’t even bother to get out until Pansy came into their room, eyes red and puffy, and iceblood written over her forehead in tattooed ink.

Chapter Text

5 - A Half–Blood on Drugs

  Everyone knew it had to be Luce.

  Who else would write iceblood on Pansy Parkinson’s forehead after the disaster that had been that breakfast conversation?

  Pansy knew it. Daphne knew it. Claire, who had stupidly revealed the very spell she was sure Luce had used, knew it. 

  But the rest of the house? Trying to get Slytherins to believe that a half blooded witch, whose only magical talent seemed to be writing in small pieces of parchment and (reluctantly, Claire allowed) potions, succeeded in casting a third year spell? It was worse than having to de-gnome a garden without house elves. It was unfathomable.

  And to make matters worse, Luce refused to own up to her crimes. Even if it was written all over her face as surely as iceblood was written over Pansy’s. The smug,

Christmas-came-early look was hard to explain away, but explain away Luce did. A half-breed? Casting third year spells? There’s simply no way, Parkinson, by your very own logic — yeah okay. Claire knew the truth.

  Luce dispelled most of the rumors of her wrongdoing in the immediate days that followed by loudly complaining about it being cruel and evil that she was being accused of casting a difficult spell when everyone knew half-bloods weren’t good at magic in the first place.

  It took more than a few days for Luce to convince Pansy of her innocence, however, and in that time, she most definitely was not welcome in the Slytherin dorms at night. Even if Snape had removed the tattoo relatively quickly, Pansy was not the forgiving type.

  Claire heard rumors the Hufflepuffs were letting Luce stay with them, but she didn’t know for certain. What Claire did know was that Luce had gone far too far with this stupid prank, she didn’t look all that sorry about it, and Claire did not want to be dragged down into this mess of chaos with her.

  It turned out, she didn’t have a choice, and by not distancing herself from Luce like her parents had explicitly told her to, she had doomed herself.

  A very short, very angry letter from her parents confirmed this.

  Claire,

  Just what do you think you have done ? Pansy Parkinson’s disgrace has been the running topic of choice and we will not let you drag our family name down into the dirt with hers. We don’t care what you do to dispel the rumors, but DO NOT let anyone accuse our family of having any part in this affair. Hanging around that halfbreed was very clearly not allowed, and see what it has become? The Parkinson's are claiming first that the halfbreed that shares your dorm did it to much scorn – naturally that girl of no worth could not have performed a difficult spell — and have moved on to claiming that you did it to protect the halfbreed. We have already had to work tirelessly in an attempt to clear our family name from this disgrace. You are to leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that you are innocent from this. Until this issue is resolved, you can forget about coming home. You know what the repercussions of a failure would ensue.

  Do not fail. Cut off all ties with that halfbreed. We are unbelievably disappointed in you.

  The note wasn’t signed, but there was no mistake in who it was from. And it stung. Her parents accusing her of doing that to Pansy and their threats, Luce causing this mess in the first place and then not even knowing what she had done. Claire didn’t care if Luce had a rivalry with Pansy. But it wasn’t fair that Claire was being dragged down in that mess. She could be disowned and kicked out on the streets because of Luce’s stupid desire for revenge.

  “You look like you’re about to cry.” The cause of all Claire’s trouble stated, then squinted at her face. “Or puke. What was so bad in that letter?”

  Claire crumpled the parchment tightly in her hand. “Nothing of your concern.” She hissed as she kicked her chair back, appetite suddenly lost, and stood. She needed to write back to her parents. She hadn’t heard any rumor's of her performing the hex on Pansy as of yet, but now the Parkinson's were reportedly accusing her, it would only be a matter of time. If Luce didn’t own up soon, Claire would be dragged down into her shit.

  “Really?” Luce said skeptically. “Because it really doesn’t look like it.”

  “Shut it, mudblood.” Daphne hissed at her.

  “Don’t — ” Claire started weakly.

  A few seats down, a boy Claire had seen maybe once before, almost fell out of his seat.

  “Belstring!” He leaned out of this seat to holler at her, a letter very obviously in his hand, waving at her.

  Claire clutched her own letter tighter, terror freezing her bones. He knew the rumor. He knew, he knew, he knew. And he would accuse her of it, right here and now, right in front of everyone, and then everyone would accuse her of it and then she would never know a moment’s peace.

  She needed to do something, to move, to shut him up, to dispel the rumor before it formed, but it was far too late.

  “You defending your half-breed friend again? Gonna tattoo iceblood on Greengrass’ forehead next?”

  Daphne froze. Luce stared at the boy, confused. The Hall suddenly felt very quiet and very small, like it was closing in on Claire while shining a spotlight to highlight her last moments.

  Claire tried to protest, but there seemed something wrong with her throat. “I didn’t — ”

  The boy waved the damning letter in the air. Everyone seemed to watch it, their attention fixated on Claire’s final moments.

  “You were responsible for Parkinson’s though, right? Because she was putting your precious halfbreed pet in her place?”

  Whispers started breaking across the room like wildfires.

  Pansy’s jaw dropped. “You — ”

  Luce started to stand up. She looked ready to jump to Claire’s defense but she would just make everything so much worse.

  You are to leave no doubt in anyone’s mind that you are innocent from this. Until this issue is resolved, you can forget about coming home. You know what the repercussions of a failure would ensue.

  Claire forced herself to breathe, before fixing a disgusted sneer on her face.

  “Why on earth would I want to defend someone like her ?” The sheer venom in that last word alone seemed to knock Luce back down. “Someone with such muddied blood. I did not do that to Pansy, nor would I want to.” She let her eyes slide to Luce. “The halfbreed deserved what she got.” Then back to the boy who had spoken. “I’d advise you not to go around spreading such foul and entirely untruthful rumors. It’s not a good look.”

  Now would be the perfect time to leave. Naturally Luce had to continuously mess everything up.

  “Do you mean that?”

  Claire wanted to immediately start yelling. The forming tears in Luce’s eyes made her stop. This was the first time she had seen Luce look this hurt and upset.

  But it was her own stupid fault, really. If she hadn’t written iceblood on Pansy’s forehead, Claire would never have to defend herself and her family to the entire wizarding community. Luce’s feelings didn’t matter as much as Claire’s status of living and a Belstring .

  “Why would I not? I don’t care about you.”

  She could hear whispers as she exited the hall. People weren’t convinced. They had been given a new person to blame for the incident, a new twist to the story. Apparently Claire publicly humiliating Luce wasn’t enough to convince them. 

  It was almost funny how much untruth and illusions were wrapped around preserving the truth. This whole situation would be resolved so much quicker if Claire could get it through everyone’s heads that she was telling the truth. A foolproof way to prove her innocence.

  Truth …

  It was probably illegal and very hard to come by. But her parents had said anyway possible. A dose of truth serum might not be her best option, but it might be her only. And then the matter could be solved once and for all.

* * *

   Your proposal was an interesting solution. Extreme and highly illegal, but interesting.

  You are to use this sparingly and only in front of your dormmates, in complete privacy. This should eliminate you as a suspect from the Parkinson view, and the rest will follow. We have attached the antidote so you do not spill any irrelevant information. This is to be used to clear our family name and nothing else.

  You must notify us of the results as soon as the event occurs. Do not mess everything up.

  Because her parents didn’t trust her not to mess it up, they hadn’t signed the note with her name or theirs to avoid tracing it back to them. The two bottles were packaged neatly inside of a sealed box. It wasn’t enough that the two bottles were very different and had very obviously different liquids inside, but each bottle had a note attached to the glass. One said veritaserum, take three drops . The other said not veritaserum . 

  Yup, a super vote of confidence. Claire tried not to be too bitter about it as she carefully closed the lid. They had given her the stuff though, so either they thought her plan had a chance of working, or the situation was dire enough they were desperate enough to try anything.

  It didn’t matter, in the end. If the plan worked, Claire might just live to see Christmas.

  Now the problem: getting herself and Pansy in the same room. It should have been easy, except that ever since the Parkinsons had discovered using Claire as a scapegoat for their daughter’s disgrace, Pansy had refused to speak to her other than snide remarks about how terrible of a person Claire was, and how she was a mudblood lover. Claire had thought that Daphne might play mediator and help her out, but apparently she had taken Claire's going to get you next thing to heart. She wanted almost less to do with Claire than Pansy. And of course, Luce wanted nothing to do with any of them and had resorted to hanging out in the library or the Hufflepuff dormitory, if rumors were to be believed about where she was sleeping. It was Luce’s fault in the first place, but noo, she had to make Claire deal with the consequences and fuck off, not even to be of any help to clean up her own mess.

  It had been a very lonely and isolating couple of days. Claire was ready to try drugging herself in the great hall to prove her innocence and get this whole thing over and done with.

  “Pansy — ” Claire started.

  Pansy’s face scrunched up like she’d tasted a lemon. She had developed a habit of doing this whenever Claire talked to or dared to be near her.

  Making a very obvious attempt to clear her face, she turned to Daphne, sitting next to her. “Do you hear something, Daphne?”

  “Pansy, please — ” Claire tried again.

  “Like an annoying fly.” Pansy said. “I think it needs to be squashed. Killed.”

  Claire flinched. “That’s not fair — ”

  “After all.” Pansy looked directly at Claire. “It’s a worthless lowlife.”

  Some snickers from nearby had Claire’s blood boiling and face flaming.

  “Listen here, you conceited bitch.” Claire leaned over the table to hiss at the Parkinson girl. “We’re settling this. My parents sent me a dose of veritaserum. If we go to the dorm, I can take it, tell you the truth that I’ve been telling you for days and we can settle this whole thing.”

  “There’s nothing to settle.” Pansy sniffed, but she couldn’t mask her surprise and curiosity fast enough.

  “There’s nothing to lose, if you’re so sure in your assumptions.” Claire countered evenly. “I didn’t take you for a coward, Parkinson.”

  “I am not .” Pansy snapped and Claire knew she had her right where she wanted her. “Fine. Let’s go.”

  Claire smiled sweetly. “Good.

  The reality of her situation and all the hesitations only fully hit Claire once they’d made their way back to their dorm and sat in a circle around the now opened box on the floor.

  This was illegal, there was no way this would stop the school’s rumors for sure, she didn’t have control over what questions she wanted to answer or not. There were so many ways in which this could go wrong. She should have thought out her decision properly instead of rushing into it.

  But she had panicked and wanted this whole thing over and in the days waiting for her parents’ response she hadn’t been able to think of a better idea if this one fell through. A school wide memory charm was far too advanced and she’d probably do it wrong. That wasn’t for a lack of researching other ways in a far corner of the library, trying to ignore how Luce was often there herself, sometimes accompanied by a group of Hufflepuffs, sometimes accompanied by that mudblood Granger — always glaring at Claire as she passed and whispering behind her back. Retaliating only made it worse, but silence was compliance. She couldn’t win.

  She couldn’t win in this situation either, veritaserum or no. she’d just have to hold the antidote and make herself chug it if the questions strayed into dangerous territory. She’d just have to trust people who hated her and hope for the best.

  Ah yes. Nothing could go wrong.

  “Well?” Pansy demanded, impatient of Claire staring at the box without moving. “Are you going to drink it? Or are you the coward as well as a traitorous iceblood?”

  Being called an iceblood stung. A lot. Claire hadn’t heard anyone else call her that, but she figured if this didn’t work, she’d be hearing it from everyone — including her parents in their letter about how they would disown her and if she dared to step back in their home, her traitorous blood would be painting the floors.

  You must notify us of the results as soon as the event occurs. Do not mess everything up.

  Imagining telling her parents she chickened out was enough of a boost to get her to pick up the bottle and uncork it.

  “Three drops. You ask me if I did it and I can only answer truthfully.”

  Pansy and Daphne both gestured impatiently for Claire to get on with it.

  Here goes everything . Claire let three drops fall onto her tongue, carefully counting each one before she swallowed.

  Instantly, dreamy unconcern bubbled up, stripping her defenses bare. Of course she’d answer their questions with all the truth and information she knew. Why would she not?

  “Did you write iceblood on my forehead?” Pansy demanded.

  “No.” Claire blinked. It was hard to focus on anything.

  Pansy and Daphne stared at each other.

  “You didn’t do it?” Daphne asked the question again.

  “No.” Claire confirmed. “I did not.”

  “Then who did?” Pansy almost howled her demand in her fit.

  Claire shrugged. “I think it was Luce. Not completely sure though. She won’t confess.”

  “The halfbreed?” Pansy screeched. “How would she know about that spell?”

  “I told her.” Claire’s lips turned downwards in a disappointed frown. “In potions that morning. She distracted me, didn’t say why, just that she was curious.”

  The door opened to reveal none other than Luce Hamza herself, who had mistakenly thought that was a good time to walk into their dormitory for perhaps the first time that week.

  She was hexed with a full-body bind before she had time to react to her dormmates all being there.

  Pansy and Daphne jumped to their feet to pull Luce properly inside of the dorm room.

  “Claire, help.” Daphne half ordered, half panted.

  “I’m under veritaserum, not the imperius curse.” Claire reminded, only watching them with a mild disinterest. “It’s very unkind of you to do it, though, this is her dorm room as well.”

  “The fuck are you on?” Pansy and Daphne had not , it seemed, performed the curse right, and Luce was still capable of speaking, and was definitely taking advantage of that.

  “Veritaserum.” Claire told her cheerfully. “It’s a truth serum. So Pansy can stop accusing me of writing iceblood on her forehead, like we think you did.”

   Pansy got Luce in the room enough for Daphne to slam the door shut.

  “Veritaserum.” Daphne said excitedly.

  The three girls stared at her blankly.

  “We can give Hamza veritaserum, then she can tell us if she did it to Pansy, and why.”

  Luce’s jaw dropped and she immediately started protesting. “What — no! You can’t drug me!”

  “She’s right, it’s illegal.” Claire scrunched up her face and tried to stand up shakily. Wow, the dreamy feeling really made her legs stop working too. That side effect should really be taken into account. “I said you could do it to me, so it’s a grey area, but she said no so you can’t.”

  “Shut up, Claire.” Pansy shoved Claire back down and grabbed the veritaserum bottle.

  “Ow! Hey!” Claire tried to grab at the bottle to no avail — Pansy pretty effortlessly and with not a lot of fighting managed to drug Luce with the truth serum.

  “Did you write iceblood on my forehead?” Pansy snapped.

  Luce’s eyes were glazed over, but narrowed. “Yes. And I’d do it again.”

  “Why?!”

  “You’ve been nothing but horrible to me from day one because my mother’s a muggleborn.” Luce fired back. “You put mud in my sheets, wouldn’t look or talk to me unless it was insulting everything about me. You ruined my life. You deserved it.”

  Claire’s frown returned somewhere along the start of the list. “They what?”

  “And you let it happen!” Luce rounded on Claire. “I thought you were my friend.”

  “I didn’t know.” Claire told her earnestly. “I didn’t know they were doing that to you.”

  Luce scoffed. “Even so. You publicly humiliated me in front of the whole school — which I’m leaving, by the way — saying you’d never care for me and you were just using me — ”

  “I lied.” Claire admitted.

  Luce stared at her. “Why?”

  “My parents. They threatened to torture, disown and/or kill me if I didn’t solve the iceblood issue. You ruined my whole life and reputation over that and I was angry and scared. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  Luce stared at Claire in disbelief. “Your parents wouldn’t kill you.”

  “Oh-kay!” Daphne interjected loudly, practically swooping in with the antidote Claire hadn’t realized she’d picked up and shoving it down her throat.

  Coming off veritaserum was rough. Realizing what she’d said under veritaserum was worse.

  Honestly, Claire tried to count her few wins instead of the pile of losses, at least Pansy knew she wasn’t responsible for the iceblood incident. And at least Daphne had interjected when she had. She definitely could have stood to do it a little bit earlier so Claire didn’t embarrass herself like she had, but she had made an attempt to salvage Claire’s remaining dignity, unlike Pansy Parkinson, who had done absolutely nothing.

  Then she processed what Luce had said, and whirled around to face Pansy and Daphne. “You put mud in her sheets?”

  Pansy looked surprised this was the first thing Claire fixated on. “Uh … yeah? On, like, the first night?”

  “Why?!”

  “Because she’s a mudblood?”

  “She’s a halfblood!”

  “Whatever!” Pansy dismissed. “It was just a joke.”

  “Doesn’t sound very funny. That’s kind of the most important part of a joke. It has to be funny.”

  Pansy and Daphne exchanged a look. Oh god. They had done more. Suddenly Claire’s question went from why did Luce do that to Pansy? to why didn’t she do it sooner? Luce apparently had a whole lot more self control than Claire had originally given her credit for.

  “You did more.” She turned to Luce, who was still drugged and magically bound behind her. She should really get to that. “They did more?”

  Luce looked at Claire like she was the biggest idiot she’d ever seen. “Yes?!”

  “How … how did you not realize?” Daphne was hesitant to ask, but she still asked, which meant Claire was an idiot and it had been obvious and Daphne and Pansy had been really cruel to Luce and Claire was probably an awful person for not realizing.

  “I don’t know?!”

  The scene quickly descended into a screaming match. Claire was of the opinion that they were stupid to think they could do half that shit and not expect Luce to retaliate. Pansy and Daphne fiercely maintained that Luce deserved it, which only proved they were idiots.

  The door creaked loudly in the only break in the ‘conversation’. The three girls turned to find Luce standing up, half out the door. The full body bind — which wasn’t even a good full body bind in the first place — must have worn off.

  “Where are you going?” Claire demanded.

  “I’m leaving.” Luce stated, quite obviously.

  “Where?”

  “Well, the school eventually.” Luce said bluntly. “But first, Dumbledore’s office because you drugged me .”

  Daphne scoffed, crossing her arms. “With what evidence?”

  Luce looked at herself. “The drugs I am currently still on?” 

a pause as the room absorbed the words spoken, then luce was gone.

  She fucking bolted. Before Claire could even process that she was escaping, Luce had already sprinted downstairs.

  Claire looked at Pansy and Daphne. Luce’s fading footsteps echoed throughout the room.

  The three pureblood girls had probably never run that fast in their lives, only one thought in each of their minds,

  Someone catch that halfblood on drugs!

Chapter Text

  Far too much cardio, a full-body bind courtesy of a far too eager Draco Malfoy and dragging a now-bound Luce up the stairs to their dormitory later, Claire was ready to leave Hogwarts herself. Not even the first month had finished and already she had ruined her reputation, her parents had threatened to kill and disown her, Pansy’s reputation was in tatters, Claire’d had a run-in with a three headed dog Luce had threatened to feed her to, and had done far too much running. She’d rather be expelled than repeat that level of cardio. And it was all Luce’s fault now that she sat down and thought about it.

  Speaking of the devil, she was sitting propped against the closed and locked door, glaring at everyone, freshly antidote-ed from the veritaserum.

  Pansy and Daphne were curled up on Pansy’s custom-made green satin sheets she never shut up about. Both were glaring at Luce like they were trying to kill her with the power of their hate, but failing due to being spectacularly out of breath from chasing Luce around the common room.

  And Claire, who was — for some godforsaken reason — the peacekeeper, was standing in the middle of the dorm, reevaluating all her life choices. She really, really should have just gone to Durmstrang with her siblings. None of this would have ever happened.

  “Okay.” Claire said into the silence, making Pansy and Daphne turn to her frostily. “Clearly , we need to establish some ground rules.”

  Again, the first month was not yet up. The dorm was made up of three ‘proper’ pureblood girls and Luce. How had it come to ground rules so quickly ? She’d be hiding a body in the lake tomorrow.

  Or, Claire looked at the three girls, not quite yet resigned to her fate, maybe tonight.

  “I don’t see a need.” Daphne sneered down at Luce. “Hamza said she was leaving the school. She can stay with the Hufflepuffs until then. She’s done a perfectly good job of staying out of where she’s not wanted.”

  Luce, who was still full body binded and could not respond, glared at Daphne harder. Claire hadn’t thought it possible.

  “She should keep doing it.” Pansy half-hid behind Daphne when Luce turned the force of her glare upon her. To Claire’s dismay, Pansy didn’t let this keep her from talking. “Keep the halfy away from us before she tattoos anyone else.”

  “Luce can’t leave the school.” Claire rubbed her forehead. “Who’s going to stop her spreading more rumours? You guys illegally drugged her . She could get you and your family into masses of trouble and do you think any of our parents will bother getting us out of that ?”

  A snarl worked its way onto Pansy’s face. She could see the truth in Claire’s words. And she didn’t like it one bit.

  “Therefore.” Claire pressed on before Pansy could declare civil war. “We need ground rules.” She waited a bit. “Any suggestions?”

  Daphne shifted in disgust. “Splitting the dorm in half didn’t work. And I suppose you won’t let her stay with the Hufflepuffs, Belstring?”

  Still on a last name basis then.

  “No.” Claire confirmed.

  Daphne looked more annoyed. “A truce then.”

  Everyone stared at her.

  “What?” Daphne huffed. “I don’t see another option.”

  “A truce?” Pansy shrieked. “You want me to forgive her?”

  “No one’s saying that.” Daphne tried to soothe, but Pansy was far too agitated to listen.

  “She wrote iceblood on my forehead!” She stood up from her bed, slowly prowling towards Luce to make her point. “She humiliated me in front of the entire school . Left my reputation in tatters . Spread rumors that will never go away .”

  Pansy was directly in front of Luce now, towering over the half-blood girl.

  Nobody moved. Claire felt that breathing too loud would turn this dorm into a crime scene, a thought that was only confirmed with Pansy’s next statement. 

  “I don’t want a truce. I want her hung up on a pike and left to dangle .”

  Nope, Claire had to interfere now death threats had been thrown. Daphne was staring at the two with wide eyes from the safety of Pansy’s bed. Lucky bitch.

  Claire slowly approached Pansy, hands out pacifyingly in front of her like Pansy was a wild animal instead of an eleven year old girl.

  “Pansy, please.” Claire pleaded. “We’ve all done things we shouldn’t have. But a murder will get you expelled and potentially sent to Azkaban. You still have some level of support. That would vanish faster than a blink.”

  Pansy clenched her fists. Claire was worried she was going to beat Luce up, but when Pansy turned back to Luce, she was radiating with thinly veiled anger and helplessness.

  “Fine. I’ll agree to your stupid truce. But we will never ever be friends.” She turned to Claire. “I’ll leave your little pet alone. But if she dares lay a hand on me again — ”

  “She won’t.” Claire promised.

  “She better not.” Pansy spat. “I’d better be getting Os in potions, halfbreed.”

  Pansy turned on her heel and walked away from Luce like nothing ever happened, returning to the safety of her bed. Claire breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe she wouldn’t have to cover for murder yet.

  “You stop calling my mother that slur and we’re fine.” Luce’s voice surprised Claire. Malfoy’s spell had worn off.

  Claire was forced to eye the exit warily. Why couldn’t any spells last ? Why couldn’t anything just go her way?

  “What, mudblood?” Daphne scrunched up her face. “She is one.”

  “Daphne.” Claire warned quietly.

  Luce sighed. “You think iceblood is this huge insult and a big deal, right?”

  Pansy and Daphne looked at each other like they were questioning Luce’s intelligence.

  “Yes?” They both exclaimed at the same time.

  “Right, well, it’s the same big deal to me when you call my mother a mudblood.”

  The three girls stared at Luce. Daphne looked shocked. Pansy looked contemplative. Claire thought about how ‘mudblood’ was so deeply embedded into her vocabulary about muggle-borns while ‘iceblood’ was a word they didn’t even speak of. And here Luce was saying they were the same thing.

  “Okay.” Pansy was the first to respond, shocking Daphne and CLaire even more. “I won’t call your family that if you don’t call me an iceblood. But I reserve the right to call others whatever I want.”

  Luce seemed to understand this was the best truce she was going to get. “Deal.”

  Pansy still didn’t want to touch Luce, so instead of a handshake, they just nodded at each other.

  “Sounds fair enough.” Claire stared down Daphne until the girl agreed too. “No more using mud — um, that word about Luce’s mother, and no more using the other word about Pansy.”

  The other three girls nodded in confirmation.

  “And me.” Daphne added hurriedly when Luce glanced at her. “I’m not an iceblood.”

  “Yes.” Claire rubbed her forehead. She felt like she was getting a headache, and she still needed to tell her parents about the sort-of success of the veritaserum. She’d just leave out it was Luce who actually did it and the truce. “No calling anyone in this dorm an iceblood. Great. Truce. Hooray. I’m writing to my parents.”

  She moved past Luce to access the door. Hopefully she’d get a moment of peace now this whole mess was over. In the dorm anyway.

  Luce followed her.

  There went the peace. She got to the exit of the Slytherin common room before she heard footsteps behind her and someone shouted.

  “Belstring! You want the halfbreed petrified again?”

  Claire turned. Luce was suddenly looking uncertain, eyes darting about at each Slytherin student staring at her, some reaching for their wands, some with wand already in hand.

  “No.” Claire said reluctantly. Goodbye sanity. “Leave her. I’ve got it handled.”

  She turned back and shoved open the door, holding it open and looking back at Luce, who just stared at her.

  “Well?” Claire demanded impatiently. “I’m not going to hold the door open forever.”

  Luce scampered after her. Claire let the door shut behind her, then walked forward without looking back.

  “Are you following me or going back to the puffs?” Claire kept her eyes forward.

  Luce jogged to catch up to her, suddenly able to move again. “I think we should include no calling me a dog. You know. If I have to consent to not calling you guys icebloods.”

  Claire sighed. Of course Luce had been called a dog and all but kicked out of the dorm as soon as Claire had left. “I’m afraid that’s the best deal you’re going to get.”

  Luce was quiet for a moment, easily keeping pace with Claire now.

  “You didn’t exactly answer my question.” Claire stated just as Luce asked her one.

  “Why did you stick up for me?”

  Claire glanced at the half blood next to her. “When?”

  “You’ve got one time bitch, what do you mean when ?”

  Claire rolled her eyes. “I didn’t need you petrified by the others. That’s hardly sticking up for you.”

  “I feel gaslit.” Luce muttered angrily, before saying louder, “Forget it. I am leaving Hogwarts.”

  Great, now Claire would have to mend the bridges Luce burnt and rely on Pasny and Daphne’s company. They weren’t even that great. Luce was generally funnier, when she wasn’t, you know, shredding everyone’s reputation.

  “Okay.” Claire said.

  Luce waited. “You’re not going to convince me not to stay?”

  Claire stopped walking with a huff and finally turned to look at Luce. “You’re not going to listen to a word I say anyway. I’m not going to bother. I don’t blame you for wanting to leave. I would too.”

  Luce blinked.

  “As long as you don’t go around saying I drugged you — because I tried to stop them if you recall — then I don’t see a problem with you leaving.”

  Luce flushed angrily. “I thought you’d care. Clearly I was wrong.”

  Claire did care, a bit. But if Luce left it would be better for her in the long run. Luce would have better friends that weren’t ignorant to her suffering like Claire had been. Claire wouldn’t get disowned for associating with half bloods. It was a win-win really.

  “Why do you care what I think?” Claire demanded instead. “You hate me. I humiliated you.”

  “You — ” Luce stopped, like she was considering this. “Yeah. Yeah you did humiliate me.”

  Claire raised her eyebrows. Luce forgot that quickly?

  “To be fair,” Luce pondered, “I did tell the whole school everything I know about you.”

  Claire gaped at her. “What?!”

  “Yeah.” Luce nodded unapologetically. “I think fifty people maybe know you wet the bed until you were seven?”

  Claire’s jaw dropped lower. “I didn’t!”

  Luce shrugged. “Whoops?”

  Claire tried not to scream in anger. How the fuck did people think she was the asshole?

  “But.” Luce needed. To stop. Talking . “You said some shit about lying that you didn’t care about me? When you were under veritaserum?”

  Claire glared at her. Now she was the one trying to kill Luce with the force of her anger.

  “Hamza.” She spat through gritted teeth. “I am not lying right now when I say that you’re an asshole and I hate you.”

  “Now.” Luce repeated. “So you do care about me! Why’d you lie then, asshole?”

  Claire started walking again. She’d have to ask if her parents would be okay with her transferring to Durmstrang. She’d keep her head down there and make sure not to befriend any dangerous half bloods who wouldn’t stay in their place.

  “I don’t owe you anything, much less an explanation.”

  Luce, refusing to take the hint she wasn’t wanted, started walking beside Claire, speculating aloud.

  “No, you said something about you being scared of your parents, wasn’t it?” She snorted. “What a loser, being afraid of your parents . They’re not going to hurt you.”

  Claire sped up and tried to think happy thoughts. She pictured herself strangling Luce. Good good. Nice happy place where there would be no repercussions for that.

  “Silent treatment, huh? Damn okay. Well I don’t think I ruined your reputation that much. I mean, I was the one kicked out of our dorm. Do you know how much fake sorrys and encouragements I had to put up with from the Hufflepuffs? They gave me lots of food though, that was good.”

  “It must be so hard.” Claire snapped. “Having people to care for you after any mild inconvenience.”

  “Mild inconvenience?”

  “I feel so bad for you.” Claire continued. “It sounds terrible, having so many people ready to fight your battles so you don’t have to lift a finger. I would never wish sitting on a throne of support with half the school ready to defend your honour on my worst enemies. It’s simply too much of an unbearable punishment.”

  “Okay listen here you pretentious bitch, I know you can’t see other peoples feelings with your head up your pureblooded ass. But here’s the facts; you come to this school, ditch me when you find up my father didn’t want anything to do with your wacky ass traditions, then get upset when after you LITERALLY FUCKING BULLY PEOPLE nobody wants to be your support? Is the narcissism from your mum or dad’s side of the family? Because even I don’t know if a psychiatrist can’t fix ALL THIS BLOND DUMBASSERY. Now make your fucking ancestors proud, suck up the woe is me attitude and BE A BETTER FUCKIN PERSON FOR ONCE.”

  Claire hadn’t realised she’d been backing away from the screaming girl until her back hit the wall. Great. She had nowhere to run, this girl was about to murder her, and she’d probably get away with it because Claire was an asshole the school hated anyway.

  Luce took a deep breath, then started speaking in a much calmer voice.

  “So you’re writing a letter to your parents. You seem really stressed about this, but I’m sure it’s going to be okay. I’m here for you.”

  Luce smiled — fucking smiled at her! — and held out a hand, like she was willing to forget about everything, including the fact she’d quite literally taken Claire’s confidence and view of the world in her hand, then snapped it in half.

  “C’mon.” Luce waved her hand in front of Claire’s face, still smiling. “The sooner you get it over and done with, the better right? Besides, I need to tell my parents I’ll stay at Hogwarts anyway.”

  Claire found her voice. “Are you … are you calling a truce between us? We’re all good?”

  Luce shrugged. “Are you going to be a pretentious pureblood bitch?”

  Claire shook her head quickly, literally fearing for her life. “No!”

  “Then yeah! We’re good.”

  Claire wasn’t sure if she wanted to be Luce’s friend anymore. But being on Luce’s good side sounded safer.

  She hesitantly took Luce’s hand, hoping for her life’s sake that this was a genuine offer of friendship and not a psyche! I’m gonna murder you in your sleep nefarious plot.

Chapter Text

  Mother and Father,

  The veritaserum worked. Pansy knows that I was not responsible for the incident and has promised to write to her parents. This should work to quell the rumours and our name will be cleared shortly.

  All my love,

  Claire

  She didn’t think she could have written anything more. She didn’t have anything else to say. Nothing that could be said to her parents, anyway. Just confirmation it worked and a firm assurance her name, their name would be cleared from this mess. She couldn’t be unsure about it. She had to be certain. Her plan had worked. The Belstring name would be tarnished no longer.

  She didn’t need to mention Luce or anything that had come with Luce’s interference. If Luce was to be discovered from another source that was out of Claire’s control, Luce could not possibly pin it to her.

  Claire hesitated, looking at the owl that blinked back slowly at her. She wanted to ask her parents if this was enough. She wanted to ask if she was okay to come home. She wanted to ask if she still had the Belstring name to call her own.

  She didn’t want to bring those questions to their attention. If she did not hear from otherwise, she would have to assume all was well.

  “Are you done with that thousand-yard stare?” Luce shattered the stifling silence. “Because I still need to send a letter. And get my stuff.”

  “Don’t rush me.” Claire snapped, but rolled up the letter anyway and attached it to the owl’s leg.

  “I told my parents I was leaving the school.” Luce side-eyed her. “I kinda need to tell them I’m staying.”

  Claire didn’t know if she was mostly relieved or annoyed that Luce was staying. Resolving to deal with it later — when, she supposed, Luce gave her a reason to feel relieved or annoyed she was saying — she sent the owl on its way and moved out of Luce’s way. She leaned against a part of the wall without owl poo covering the side and watched Luce write her own (much longer, with much messier handwriting) letter.

  “You know, for someone so eager to write a letter to their parents, you really wrote jackshit.” Luce mentioned casually. She then stuck half her quill in her mouth to chew on it — thoughtfully, Claire assumed the notion was supposed to be — only to gag, spit it out, and in the process, completely ruin a perfectly good quill.

  Claire raised an eyebrow in silent judgement.

  “Shut the fuck up.” Luce grumbled, dropping the soggy, tattered remains and stepping on it.

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “Your face did. Pens are so much better anyway. I forgot you wizards are stuck in the eighteen-hundreds.”

  Claire rolled her eyes. “No, we’re not.”

  “You use quills and women are housewives.” Luce suddenly looked up with a gasp. “Can women vote?”

  Claire frowned. “What do you mean can women vote — ”

  Luce looked horrified. “They can’t ?! Do you even know what voting is — ”

  “Of course I know what voting is, what do you think I am, three?”

  “Yeah, the age you get fucking married off !”

  Claire scowled. “Don’t be stupid. I understand that’s hard, but don’t be.”

  Luce pointed at her accusingly. “ You were the one who told me women’s sole purpose in life is marrying and having children, so I guess you’re the stupid one.”

  Annoyed, Claire decided. She was annoyed that Luce was staying at Hogwarts.

  “Everyone votes.” Claire said clipply. “There has to be an election no less than every seven years. The same Minister can be voted in office more than once. Women finish their education, same as men. Marriages are often arranged to continue the purity of magic, and for other political reasons. Sometimes — mostly with heirs — they are arranged at a young age, but they do not actually get married until they have graduated and matured.”

  She glared at Luce, who was staring at the wall, very obviously struggling to keep up with the information.

  “Does that answer your question?”

  Luce’s gaze flicked back to Claire sharply. “Are you arranged to be married?”

  Claire figured that question would come up. “Not yet. I’m not an heir, like I — ”

  “Not yet?”

  Claire frowned. “My eldest brother has an arranged marriage, as our family heir. He’s known he is to marry Florence since they were both very young. My parents are focusing on my sisters, now they are almost fifteen. I’m only — ”

  “You get arranged marriages at fifteen?!”

  “Yes?”

  You’d have thought Claire had said something scandalous from the look on Luce’s face.

  “So what?” Luce had comprehended spells easier (and that was saying something). “You’ll turn fifteen and your parents will sit you down ‘Happy birthday Claire, you’re engaged to’ —” Luce gestured around the owlery like the owls had stolen her power of speech. “Draco Malfoy or some shit — ”

  Claire burst out laughing before she realised Luce was being completely serious.

  “What?” Luce asked uncertainty.

  “Me.” Claire gestured at herself. “Not part of the Sacred twenty-eight, a fourth-born girl.” She pointed out the door, in the direction of the common rooms. “Draco Malfoy. Very big part of the Sacred twenty-eight. The only Malfoy child, the Heir of both the Malfoy family and technically, the Black family through his mother’s side?”

  Luce looked at Claire, not understanding. “Yes? What’s the Sacred twenty-eight?”

  “Sweet Merlin.” Claire muttered. Had Luce’s father taught her nothing?

  She decided to be generous. Luce and her family were from Australia. Australian politics would not be the same as English.

  “The twenty-eight major pureblooded families that have been in England since forever are known as the sacred twenty-eight.”

  “Oh, so stuffy families like Pug-Face who think people like me are inferior.” Luce nodded.

  Claire hummed. “Kind of. Pansy and Daphne’s families are both part of the Sacred twenty-eight, but so are families like the Fawleys, who are traditionally Hufflepuffs,” that spoke for itself, “and the Weasleys.” Which again spoke for itself.

  Luce considered this for a moment, then snorted loudly.

  “Wait wait wait, the redheads you hate because they’re Gryffindors and — what’s the word?”

  “Blood traitors?”

  “Blood traitors!” Luce exclaimed, pointing at Claire. “Those are the Weasleys?”

  Claire nodded slowly, unsure where this was going.

  “ They’re part of your fancy upper-class rank? And you’re not?”

  Claire immediately started scowling. “I will shove you off this tower .”

  Luce cackled. “How are you such an asshole about pureblood shit and then not even be high in your stupid hierarchy thing?”

  Claire’s cheeks flushed. “How can your dad be a pureblood and you’re so clueless about magic?”

  Luce stopped pointing at Claire and started pondering. “I wonder what we have as our hierarchy thing. Imagine I’m higher than you.”

  Claire’s scowl deepened. “Considering how unaware you are, I severely doubt it .”

  Luce grinned. “I’m going to ask my dad.”

  “You do that.”

  Luce finished her letter with a dramatic flourish, tied it to a owl’s leg and sent it on its way before turning back to Claire, still with that shit-eating smug grin on her face.

  Claire was never going to hear the end of the Weasleys being part of the sacred twenty-eight and the Belstrings not.

  “Let’s go get my stuff, Ma’am Lower-Than-The-Weasels.”

  Claire’s next letter to her parents was going to be a request for an untraceable poison.

* * *

  To make matters better, the Weasley twins were trying to break into the Hufflepuff common room at the exact same time Luce dragged Claire there to help get her stuff.

  And of course the Weasels grabbed Claire to stop her entering after Luce. And of course Luce pretended not to see a thing, resulting in Claire being left out in the hallway with the weasels with a reputation for hunting down Slytherins especially, and making their lives hell.

  Claire was definitely going to request that untraceable poison, granted she lived past this encounter, which became only more unlikely every time the weasels opened their mouths.

  “Claire Belstring.” Weasel one drew his wand when Claire tried to shove him away.

  “Ah ah ah.” Weasel two said patronisingly, tapping his own wand against Claire’s forehead. “We just want to have a chat .”

  “No.” Claire said simply, eyeing the wands and weighing her chances. They were significantly older and larger. She didn’t want to assume they knew no magic. She didn’t know what year they were in, but they had to know at least a mediocre amount of spells to have processed past first year. And there were two of them against one of her because Luce had left her . Not to mention there was no way she could beat them in a physical fight if it came to it.

  Yeah. Not good chances.

  She doubted any passing students would help her either, not if Luce had been spending the past couple of weeks with them, spreading false rumours about how much of a horrible person Claire was. And diplomacy wasn’t likely to work against weasels who clearly cornered her with the intent to hurt her. Chat be damned. Claire wasn’t a fool. She didn’t know what on earth she could have done to warrant being hunted down personally, but she doubted there was much getting out of it, either way.

  “See, we’re not giving you a choice.” Weasel one was honestly so slow on the uptake. Claire had figured this out the moment they had seized her arm and dragged her away from Luce. They weren’t special.

  “Well I have stuff to do so get it over and done with.” Claire said when the weasels took too long to speak. What were they, tortoises?

  She leaned against the wall she was being unceremoniously pinned against and crossed her arms, faking nonchalance. She had seen her family seize control of a similar situation the same way. Oozing I’m not scared of you, I’m the one in control here attitude alone could turn the situation around favourably. 

  She hoped.

  “To business then!” Weasel two said with delight.

  Weasel one was much less happy. “Our father’s job is being threatened.”

  Of all the things Claire should care about, Father Weasel’s job did not qualify for being anywhere near the list. She was genuinely confused about this. Why would they volunteer such good blackmail information to her? This would only result in her mocking them more for being poor?

  “I fail to see how this has anything to do with me.” Claire told them, quite truthfully.

  They didn’t like that answer.

  Weasel two’s wand burned against Claire’s forehead. She didn’t have anywhere to flinch away from it.

  “You wrote iceblood on Parkinson’s forehead and now we’re being blamed for it.” Weasel one snarled. “All your perfect pureblood families are howling for our blood.”

  Claire tried to hit the wand away from her. “I didn’t. Find another victim to pin the blame on. And here’s a tip, bring proof. You look like insecure assholes, trying to pin the blame on the first innocent girl you see.”

  “Don’t make us hex this out of you.” Weasel two threatened. “Maybe you’ll ‘fess up if we write iceblood on your forehead.”

  Claire’s mouth felt dry. “Maybe your dad will lose his job if you tattoo iceblood on someone else’s forehead.”

  Weasel two’s wand burnt worse against Claire’s skin and she yelped, just as the door to the Hufflepuff common room opened. Luce and multiple other Hufflepuff students spilled out, all talking loudly.

  The weasels froze when the others spotted them. Claire used their momentary distraction to hit weasel two’s wand away from her and wriggle out of the gap they’d imprisoned her in.

  “What — ” Luce started at the exact moment weasel one broke out of his trance, seized Claire’s braid and yanked her back by her hair. Claire screamed as she crumpled to the ground.

  “Hey!” Luce interjected. “What’s going on?”

  “She,” Weasel one kicked Claire’s leg. “Is getting our father fired by refusing to own up to tattooing Parkinson’s forehead.”

  “ I will get your father fired for his sons beating up first years in front of witnesses !” Luce’s dramatic gesture towards the Hufflepuffs she’d emerged with was dampened by the fact that not one of them was looking at the scene, not even from behind their hands they’ve covered their eyes with.

  “We have deniability.” One Hufflepuff said.

  “We ain’t see nothing.” Another agreed.

  Luce turned back to the weasels, undeterred. “Witness!”

  The weasels miraculously stepped away from Claire in complete and utter confusion, giving Claire the grounds she needed to retreat away and stand up, which was great, especially due to their next words.

  “Don’t you hate her?” Weasel two demanded. “She said she hated you, and you were worthless in front of the entire school.”

  Claire flinched.

  “That was a prank .” Luce snapped back defiantly. “You know all about pranks don’t you , Weasley?”

  Weasel one gestured towards Claire angrily. “The point of pranks is that they’re supposed to be funny!”

  Luce also gestured to Claire. “Yeah, because your prank looks so funny!”

  Luce stared down the weasels, who didn’t seem able to come up with a retort to that.

  One Hufflepuff slowly lowered her hands to give Luce a confused and suspicious look. “Didn’t you say the girls in your dorm — including her I’m guessing — drugged you with — ”

  Luce clapped her hand over the girl’s mouth. “Shhhh. They don’t need to know that.”

  The weasels whipped their heads around to stare at Claire.

  “You’re the reason our dad’s losing his job and you drugged her?” They both demanded at the same time.

  “I didn’t drug her!”

  “Oh, so you’re denying this and writing iceblood on Parkinson’s forehead?” Weasel one sneered.

  Luce beat Claire to speaking. “Pug-face did it to herself. She wasn’t getting enough attention and now she’s getting all the sympathy.” She gave the twins a look that was a cross between annoyed and disgusted. “Just because you’re ginger doesn’t mean you don’t have brains. Use them.”

  Luce was done talking. She grabbed Claire’s arm and dragged both the shell-shocked Slytherin and her trunk away.

  “Why would you say — ” Claire started when they had crossed the corner, leaving the Hufflepuffs and weasels behind.

  “Were they attacking you because their family name is superior to yours?” Luce’s innocent tone didn’t match the devil look on her face.

  “I want to kill you.” Claire told her.

  “My schedule’s free later, for now we run.”

  “I HATE YOU!”

  “ RUN , BITCH!”

* * *

  They had flying lessons the next day. This meant Claire didn’t have to kill Luce after all, because the way Luce described flying, it would take care of her. It would even look like an accident, so Claire wouldn’t get into any trouble at all!

  She’d flown before, Luce assured Claire, but in a controlled environment with nets underneath and safety regulations. Australia had largely intermingled populations of magic kind and muggles, so there were specific places one could fly, and those arena places had many O-H-and-S (whatever that was) measures.

  And people thought Australia was tough. In Britain, you just went out (granted you weren’t in a muggle-dominated area) and flew. Apparently that was ‘weird’ and ‘unsafe’ and ‘deadly’.

  Whatever Luce. As long as she didn’t embarrass Claire more than she already had. Because those rumours about Pansy doing the iceblood thing to herself? So popular. So widely spread. Apparently untraceable to Luce and Claire, since the Weasley twins were loudly the source of that rumour — just as well.

  So having the Slytherins and Gryffindors together in a flying lessons — with no safety regards, as Luce put it — didn’t seem a good idea.

  Nevertheless, that was their scheduled class, and so it had to happen.

  The Slytherin students all made their way down to the grounds separately, and yet all arrived before any of the Gryffindors decided to show up.

  Claire almost didn’t hear them coming, too busy trying to calm Luce down.

  “You want me to get on one of these brooms?!” Luce shrieked, pointing at the broom she was standing beside.

  To be fair to Luce, Claire could see her point. The brooms had very obviously been in use by students for a very long time. Some of the twigs stuck out at odd angles. She’d heard people complain about how they vibrated and wouldn’t turn how you wanted them to.

  She wasn’t about to tell Luce this, though. Luce was causing a big enough fuss as it was. Claire didn’t want to give her more reason to complain.

  “It’s fine.”

  “This is gonna be how I die!”

  “You’re not going to die now.”

  Luce pointed an accusing finger at Claire. “Oh really? You’re not going to shove me off my broom so my skull splatters all over the ground in a mess of un-pure blood?”

  Claire rolled her eyes. “ Impure , and not that you’ve shouted it to the class. Far too obvious.”

  Luce opened her mouth.

  “But if you continue screaming bloody murder in my ear, I might be convinced to ignore the consequences.” Claire finished.

  Luce closed her mouth, glared at Claire, and then decided to talk again anyway, in a voice heavily laden with sarcasm. “Great, thanks, good to know.”

  “You’re welcome.” Claire responded sweetly.

  Luce looked at the brooms again. “Some of us have never seen a broom before though, so I bet someone’s going to shoot up like a freaking cannonball and then they’re going to fall off and there’s no safety measures, so they’ll get seriously hurt or die.”

  “No one’s going to die, Luce.” Claire rubbed her temples. Why was this of all things a big deal? This was coming from the same girl who snuck out at night to see a three-headed dog and wanted to go to the Forbidden Forest to hunt down unicorns. How was she of all people afraid of flying?

  Madam Hooch arrived and started shouting instructions before Luce could continue complaining.

  “Well, what are you all waiting for?” She barked.

  “You, probably.” Luce muttered.

  “Everyone stand by a broomstick.” Hooch continued, not hearing Luce. “Come on, hurry up. Stick out your right hand over your broom, and say ‘Up!’”

  The air was filled with around twenty children shouting “Up”, most over and over and over again. Only a few brooms had leapt immediately to the hand of their temporary owner, most of whom were purebloods who had done this many times before, but also Potter. Because Potter.

  After everyone had secured their brooms to their hands, Madam Hooch walked up and down the line, telling people how to properly hold their brooms and correcting their grips.

  “Now, when I blow my whistle, you kick off from the ground, hard,” said Madam Hooch. “Keep your brooms steady, rise a few feet, and then come straight back down by leaning forward slightly. On my whistle — three — two — ”

  Claire would never ever admit she was wrong and Luce was right about anything. That was simply wrong.

  But when Longbottom decided to shoot up like he’d never been on a broom before, then proceeded to fall off his broom and hit the ground with a nasty crack, Claire couldn’t look at Luce.

  Luce made it very hard not to be looked at.

  “SEE?!” She screamed, tugging on Claire’s sleeve with one hand and pointing at Longbottom wildly with the other. “I FUCKING TOLD YOU THIS WOULD HAPPEN!”

  “Shut up.” Claire muttered, flushing red as the class turned from staring at Longbottom to staring at Luce.

  “‘No, Luce, no one’s going to die, Luce, everything is perfectly safe, Luce’.” Luce shouted. “I FUCKING TOLD YOU SOMEONE WOULD DO EXACTLY THAT!”

  “Broken wrist.” Madam Hooch declared, kneeling over Longbottom. “Come on, boy, it’s alright, up you get.”
  She turned to the rest of the class.

  “None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where they are or you’ll be out of Hogwarts before you can say ‘Quidditch.’” She frowned at Luce. “Please calm yourself, child.” Then back to Longbottom. “Come on, dear.”

  “Yeah, control your half-breed pet, Belstring.” Pansy sneered.

  “Don’t call her that.” Claire snapped before Luce could escalate the situation any further.

  “Ooh, defending Hamza are you?”

  “I think Luce is more than capable of defending herself against you, Parkinson.”

  Pansy went pale when Luce waved tauntingly at her. Daphne dragged Pansy back into the group of mingling Slytherins, glaring at both Claire and Luce as she did so.

  Malfoy burst into laughter. It took Claire a good couple of confusing seconds to realise he was laughing at Longbottom and not Pansy.

  “Did you see his face, the great lump?”

  The Slytherin boys burst into laughter. Pansy and Daphne very obviously tried to join in. Luce snorted a bit.

  “What?” She said when Claire looked at her. “It was a bit funny that he fell.”

  “You’re impossible to understand.” Claire muttered as a Gryffindor girl told Malfoy to shut up.

  “Ooh, sticking up for Longbottom?” Pansy taunted, like defending Malfoy and bullying Gryffindors could get her back in society’s good books. “Never thought you’d like fat little crybabies, Parvati.”

  “Look!” Malfoy darted forward and snatched something out of the grass. “It’s that stupid thing Longbottom’s gran sent him.”

  It was a little ball, a Remembrall maybe — how Malfoy knew Longbottom’s gran gave it to him was beyond Claire — and it glittered slightly in the sun as he held it up.

  “Give that here, Malfoy,” said Potter quietly, and just like that, everyone was hanging onto the boys’ every word.

  Malfoy smiled nastily. He was about to do something stupid.

  “I think I’ll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find — how about — up a tree?”

  “Give it here !” Potter yelled, but Malfoy leapt onto his broomstick and took off.

  Hovering level with the topmost branches of an oak he called, “Come and get it, Potter!”

  “This is stupid.” Luce declared, watching Potter grab his broom.

  “They’re boys.” Claire sighed. Granger was blabbing on about rules and trouble to no avail. “What did you expect?”

  “YOU’RE BEING ASSHOLES!” Luce was the only one to shout anything derogatory at the boys, not taking either one’s side.

  Malfoy was too preoccupied with the way Potter had darted at him, almost knocking him off his broom. Potter was too preoccupied with almost knocking Malfoy off his broom.

  Neither boy responded.

  “GIVE THE BOY BACK HIS TOY-THING!” Luce yelled at Malfoy. “STOP BEING A CONCEITED JERK!”

  “Luce.” Claire warned, trying desperately to get her to shut up .

  “Who was that kid?” Luce asked a nearby student.

  “Neville?” The Gryffindor girl asked uncertainly.

  Luce turned back to the sky and cupped her hands over her mouth. “DO YOU LIKE FONDLING NEVILLE’S BALLS, MALFOY?!”

  There was a pause. Claire felt horrified. Luce looked triumphant.

  Malfoy yelled “Catch, Potter!” and threw the ball high in the air before streaking down to the ground, dismounting his broom and storming around huffing.

  Potter caught the remembrall. A foot from the ground. And didn’t injure himself.

  What a main character.

  He only looked slightly uncomfortable with holding the ball that belonged to Neville. The other Gryffindors laughing and cheering him on seemed to encourage him to feel more pleased with himself about the matter.

  “Do you know who my father is?” Malfoy demanded of Luce. He looked royally pissed, both at Potter for being Potter, and Luce, for the blatant disrespect she had shown him. And Luce, it seemed, was a problem easier to fix.

  “Why, did your mother not tell you?” Luce fired back without hesitating. “Don’t blame her if he’s a big of a jerk as you.”

  “HARRY POTTER!” Professor McGonagall’s scream distracted the class enough for Claire to grab Luce by the arm and drag her away from Malfoy.

  Potter was (rightfully) trembling in his boots as he stood up and watching McGonagall swoop towards him, almost speechless with shock.

  “ Never — in all my time at Hogwarts — how dare you — might have broken your neck — ”

  Naturally, the Gryffindors rallied to his defence.

  “It wasn’t his fault, Professor — ”

  “Be quiet, Miss Patil — ”

  “But Malfoy — ”

  “That’s enough , Mr. Weasley. Potter, follow me, now.”

  Potter tramped off and in his victory, Malfoy seemed to forget about Luce insulting him and his family. At least for long enough that Claire could (for the millionth time) attempt to explain pureblood culture to the hapless halfblood known as Luce.

Chapter Text

  “Can we go visit Missy?”

  Claire paused, letting her tie drape around her shoulders like a scarf as she turned to Luce. “Who’s Missy?”

  Luce looked insulted. She had already been insulted by Claire making fun of the idea of dressing up as characters from muggle fiction — a popular tradition on Halloween for muggles, apparently — and now Claire didn’t know who Missy was. What a crime.

  “How do you not know who Missy is?”

  “That muggle character you wanted to dress up as for Halloween?”

  “What are you, stupid? No!”

  Claire shrugged helplessly. “One of your puff friends?”

  “What? No! The three headed dog who tried to eat us like, two months ago.”

  It hadn’t been long enough since the flying lessons incident for normal people to get bored with the relative peace. Luce was not a normal person. So much so that she wanted to go visit the three-headed dog that had tried to kill them two months ago .

  But no. This was Luce they were talking about. Luce who had named the three-headed dog who had tried to eat them.

  “You named that thing?”

  Luce scratched her head. “Was I not supposed to?”

  “No! You were supposed to never think of it again!”

  “But she’s cuuute .” Luce whined.

  “You named it Missy ?”

  “Yeah?”

  Claire glared at Luce in disbelief. “Missy.”

  Luce nodded. “Short for Missile Launcher.”

  Just when Claire had dared to think that nothing Luce could do anymore could surprise her.

  “You named the dog Missile Launcher .”

  Luce narrowed her eyes. “You’re judging me.”

  Claire breathed out heavily through her nose, trying to force a smile. “Nooooo. Why would you think I’d ever think of judging you after you named a three headed dog who tried to eat us alive . But not only did you name a three headed dog who tried to eat us alive, you named her Missy . But not just Missy. Noooo. That would be too boring. You named her Missile Launcher .”

  Luce didn’t say anything, for long enough for Claire to finish adjusting her tie.

  “I’m going to get my dad to launch missiles at you.” Luce said out of nowhere in a matter-of-fact tone.

  Claire rolled her eyes and walked over to the door. She was so done with Luce. They were not going to see the dog {she refused to call it Missy or Missile Launcher or whatever Luce wanted to call it}. They were going to go down to Potions class and everything was going to be fine. Minus the fact that Luce would likely cause the potion to explode a billion times. But Claire would neutralise it, it would be fine.

  “You can’t do that.”

  “Yeah I can.” Luce said in a sing-song voice, sliding down the railing into the common room. “My dad’s in the military.” She finished when Claire joined her.

  Unease stopped Claire retorting to Luce’s statement. She’d heard the military was basically the muggle version of aurors, and everyone knew how biased aurors were, especially against pureblooded Slytherins.

  “ — prancing around with that foul scar cutting his forehead open.” Malfoy was telling everyone who’d listen, loud voice drawing both Claire and Luce’s attention. He was sitting on one of the plush emerald armchairs, surrounded by a crowd of not-particularly-at-all interested Slytherins. Some were mouthing along like this was a well-rehearsed speech.

  “I mean, I don’t think that makes anyone particularly special, would you? But for all the special treatment Potter gets, some people clearly think it does.”

  Claire had barely opened her mouth to form a question when a fifth year Slytherin saw her and aggressively shook his head.

  “Don’t!” He hissed. “You’ll make it worse.”

  “And then McGonagall goes and gives him a broomstick, like actually buys him his own broomstick.” Malfoy looked around for anyone to give him shreds of the incredulous anger he was feeling. “Who even does that? He’s plenty rich enough on his own, he doesn’t need Hogwarts’ pity funding, but nooo, he’s Harry Potter, he gets only the best for him. Special privileges, you know?”

  “We’re hoping he’ll tire himself out.” Another Slytherin added, this one maybe a sixth or seventh year girl who was clearly trying (and failing) to study.

  “It’s not working,” Claire noted at the resounding snorts from the girl’s statement.

  “How did you know?” The first boy drawled.

  Malfoy was leaning towards the crowd, like he was sharing top secret information.

  “Look, it’s his reliable sources rant.” The studying girl muttered.

  “You know, I heard from reliable sources ,” Malfoy said on cue, “that Potter got put on the Gryffindor Quidditch team . As a first year .” He looked at the crowd in clear disbelief.

  Claire felt a bit shocked at this. Of all people to do this, she would have picked Potter to be the one to get put on the Quidditch team early, but still .

  She almost forgot about ensuring Luce shut up too. The other Slytherins were still fairly iffy around her. Claire might be allowed to ask questions. But Luce?

  The Slytherin boy clearly saw her reaction.

  “We’re not encouraging him.” He told her firmly. “It was weird the first time. But not the second or the third. If we don’t give him a reaction …”

  “He’ll keep doing it.” The studying girl mumbled, aggressively dotting her parchment so her quill poked through. “Ugh!”

  Malfoy was still ranting angrily. “Those rules have been there for a century, barring first years from bringing their own brooms. But the second famous Harry Potter steps on a broom, the professors are falling all over themselves to accommodate his every want.”

  He took a deep breath, then looked at Pansy expectantly.

  Even Pansy looked annoyed, but obediently said, “That’s terrible, Draco.”

  “I KNOW!” Malfoy practically yelled it at the top of his lungs.

  The studying girl jumped at the sudden shout, spilling her ink over her essay.

  “Merlin fucking — ” She slammed her hands down on the desk. “We fucking get it Malfoy ! Shut the hell up. No one cares anymore, we heard you the first three times you said it this morning . Your ‘reliable sources’ you’re so proud of are your fucking self because you’re so obsessed with him and keep stalking him! Go suck his dick for all I care, but if I hear ‘Potter’ one more time, I’m going to kill myself .”

  Malfoy looked shell-shocked and humiliated. This only grew when people started applauding the girl — led by Luce who was loudly shouting ‘encore! Encore!’

  The girl promptly snatched up the soggy remains of her essay and stomped out of the common room.

   Malfoy was bright red and glaring at Luce, who had started laughing her head off. She was far from the only one, but she was the only half-blood his age.

  “You should go.” The older Slytherin boy suggested. “It’s only a matter of time before he starts up again.” The boy’s eyes narrowed at Luce. “Or fights her.”
  “Probably.” Claire sighed. “We need to get to Potions anyway.”

  “But the drama.” Luce whined.

  “Of him convincing half the common room to beat you up?” Claire shot back.

  Luce opened her mouth, then closed it carefully as she observed the common room.

  Claire arched an eyebrow, amused. “So are you coming?”

  Luce sighed, looking and sounding utterly defeated. “Yeah.”

* * *

  In all that excitement, Claire had completely forgotten about Missy.

  Luce had not. And she was still eager to visit the monstrosity of the dog that had literally tried to kill them, what point was Luce not getting from this .

  Potions provided a good distraction. Because Hermione Granger had decided to work at the adjacent table to them.

  Claire would have admired the audacity if she didn’t hate Granger so much. It wasn’t even her blood status at this point, Granger was just a bitch .

  “You can’t put that in your cauldron, it’s not in the recipe” in a shrill know-it-all voice grating against Claire’s skull every five minutes .

  Claire was already struggling enough as it was, neutralising Luce’s potions disaster, she didn’t need Granger’s high pitched banshee shrieking added on top of it.

  “What’s going to make the potion explode for sure?” Luce asked Claire in a lowered tone after probably the sixth time Granger had screamed at them. Claire thought they had enormous patience to have not force-fed Granger whatever half-baked potion they had that could probably cause her major physical bodily harm so far.

  “I actually want to pass this class — ” Claire started hotly.

  “Not for us .” Luce interrupted, looking highly judgmental. “For HBA.”

  Claire frowned. “What’s HBA?”

  This was not the first time Luce had given her a disappointed look, like she was severely doubting Claire’s intelligence. This was not even the first time today. Claire was getting sick of those looks.

  “Hermione’s Being Annoying. Because she always is and always will be . Now how do I blow her potion up in her face?”

  Claire’s mouth formed an ‘o’ as she immediately turned to look at Granger’s potion. A forgetfulness potion was a relatively hard one to make explode, which was probably why it was taught to first years. But, as Longbottom and Finnigan from Gryffindor loved to prove, nothing was impossible if you loved arson and were terrible at potions enough.

  It did have a stand time of forty-five minutes at the least where it shouldn’t be disturbed, however, and Granger was in the midst of that time. The perfect time to easily mess something up.

  “There should be dittany in Snape’s storage.” Claire muttered and Luce grinned wickedly.

  “I’ll be back.”

  Any Gryffindor would have been stopped the instant they stepped away from their potion. Snape ignored Luce’s not-very-subtle departure, much to Granger’s chagrin.

  “Where is she going?” Granger demanded of Claire, who took a note from Snape’s book, completely ignored her in favour of cleaning her working environment. A potion made on a cluttered workspace was never good. It would get knocked, or neglected, or ingredients that shouldn’t be mixed would get mixed.

  “What is she getting?” Granger pressed, like an annoying fly buzzing in Claire’s ears.

  Claire didn’t know how many times she had to very-obviously, very-purposefully ignore Granger before she would get the message that Claire did not in any way shape or form want to speak to her , but it would clearly be multiple more times because Granger kept asking questions .

  “It’s another ingredient that’s not in the recipe isn’t it? That’s unbelievable. She’s going to blow the whole classroom up. I can’t believe Professor Snape would just allow this, I mean if it was Harry doing even half of what Luce is doing, Professor Snape would take away so many points from Gryffindor. It’s really unfair on the rest of us, I feel like I have to work really hard in all my other classes to get some of those back for us.”

  Luce needed to hurry the fuck up with that dittany before Claire physically attacked Granger, or held her face in the potion until the bubbles stopped.

  Could Claire really be held accountable if Granger died via a potion? It was her own potion after it, and Granger’s parents had no connection whatsoever to the wizarding world, so Claire would have her parents’ protection and Granger would have nothing …

  Granger was honestly probably lucky that Luce returned when she did. Claire was lucky that Granger’s attention was too focused on interrogating her to notice Luce returning and dropping a small parcel in her cauldron.

  Luce returned to Claire’s side with a grin. Claire mentally counted, one … two …

  The potion bubbled, fizzed and turned a violent purple colour.

  Granger paused to stare at her potion in shock just as it exploded with a bang louder than her scream.

  “Act shocked.” Luce muttered before very loudly gasping.

  Claire clapped a hand over her mouth and backed away. “What did you do ?!”

  “I didn’t do anything!” Granger screamed.

  Luce stepped towards the still-exploding potion, something clutched in her hand.

  Granger pointed a shaky finger at her. “You! You messed with my potion!”

  “Oh, because it’s easy to blame us for your mistakes, isn’t it?” Claire sneered as Luce shoved Granger out of the way and dropped something else into the potion.

  It made an almost Granger-sounding squeal — or perhaps that was just Granger — then settled down. Claire’s jaw dropped.

  Snape chose that exact moment to appear amidst the coloured smoke of the ruined potion.

  “ What is going on here?”

  “Granger’s potion exploded, sir.” Luce replied truthfully, completely neglecting the fact that she was in fact responsible.

  Claire was still coming to terms with the fact Luce knew how to neutralise the explosions she caused. And yet let Claire deal with the mess.

  “She did it, I know she did it!” Granger said shrilly, pointing an accusing finger at Luce.

  In any other class, with Luce’s known reputation of someone who did not know what was going on, and Granger’s reputation of Little Miss Perfect who could do no wrong, this accusation might have been taken seriously.

  But this was Snape’s class.

  And the minute he heard it was Granger’s potion who exploded, furthered by Claire snap that “Maybe you were too busy criticising the way I made my potion to worry about your own” and Luce protest that “I saved it, not ruined it, you idiot”, Luce was not looking at any repercussions whatsoever.

  “Twenty points to Slytherin for your quick thinking in preventing a disaster, Miss Hamza.” Snape praised, before glaring at Granger. “And Miss Granger, twenty points from Gryffindor for being so careless. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected any better from you.”

  Granger looked liable to burst into tears. Luce high-fived Claire the minute Snape turned his back.

* * *

  It seemed Halloween’s excitements were far from over, if Professor Quirrell running in mid-feast to scream “There’s a troll in the dungeons” and fainting was any indication.

  What’s better was the obvious way to handle this issue was to send everyone to their respective house common rooms.

  And Slytherin’s was in the dungeons , literally where the freaking troll was . But did anyone care? Nope! Why would they? It was only a quarter of the school after all! Why would that be of anyone’s concern?

  It didn’t even matter that the Slytherins were very vocal about the stupidity of the decision, and how it felt very sending-them-to-their-deaths type-thing. Because Snape chose that exact moment to disappear and Snape would have been the only professor to speak up about this very pressing issue.

  “It’s going to be okay.” A sixth year prefect girl soothed the younger years, holding a second year boy’s hand. “They wouldn’t have sent us to our common rooms if they weren’t sure it was safe.”

  “Don’t lie to them.” Another older student scowled. “The thought didn’t once cross Dumbledore’s mind. Tell them we’ll take care of it if you must, but don’t lie to them and tell them the professors care. They need to learn we fend for ourselves.”

  “Are you going to die?” The second year boy looked up at the girl, whom Claire figured was his older sister. “Mira, are we going to die?”

  “Of course not.” The girl shot the older boy a very angry look. “Everything’s going to be fine.”

  Luce gasped and grabbed onto Claire’s arm, scaring the absolute shit out of Claire.

  “What?!” Claire hissed.

  “We should go visit Missy!”

  Claire almost slapped her. “There is a troll, probably in our common room and you want to visit a three-headed dog ?!”

  “Well the troll can’t attack us if we’re with Missy!”

  “Yeah, because Missy would have already killed us !”

  “Well, Missy’s away from the dungeons, so we’ll be safe from the troll.”

  “The troll’s probably moved away from the dungeons.” Claire tried to be optimistic.

  “Then it could be anywhere , so we could be dead, or we could be under the protection of a three-headed dog to fight off our enemy, the troll!”

  Luce brought up an awfully good point and Claire didn’t like it at all.

  “There’s safety in numbers, we’re following our house.” She told the half-blood firmly.

  “There’s also death in numbers, it’s called a FUCKING MASSACRE.” Luce gestured wildly at the Slytherin boy. “He said it himself, Dumbledore doesn’t give a shit about us! We’re all going to die!”

  “That is not what he said.” Claire said, like a liar, because that was basically exactly what he said.

  “I’m going to fight the troll myself.” Luce muttered.

  Claire gave her an incredulous look. “Have you ever even seen a troll?”

  “Nope!”

  “Girls!” The older boy shouted.

  Claire grabbed Luce this time. “We’re not visiting that stupid dog . Come on .”

  It turned out they didn’t need to brace the three-headed dog for it’s ‘protection’ after all, so Luce didn’t need to grumble about it the whole way to the Slytherin dorms like she did.

  The troll wasn’t in the dungeons when the Slytherins got there, much to everyone’s relief. Older students searched each of the dormitories in groups to ensure there was no troll lurking anywhere that could spring out on them.

  Snape came in much later, clearly favouring one leg.

  He did not enter to a warm welcome. It was clear most of their house was loath to put their frustration into words, but the where were you when they sent us to exactly where they said the troll was was clear.

  Snape didn’t offer an explanation for his absence.

  “The troll issue has been taken care of.” He told the silent common room. “I appreciate you going back to your common room when asked and following the given instructions and not causing trouble .”

  Claire pointedly raised her eyebrows at Luce, but the way he emphasised those phrases made her think something had happened between the troll and some student who did not in fact go back to his common room when asked, nor follow the given instructions, and thus caused trouble.

  Just a hunch though.

  “What happened?” The Slytherin boy called out, crossing his arms. His annoyance was clear. He’d spent the past half hour (at least) alternating between comforting students having mental breakdowns, and conversing with the older students in lowered tones, wands in hand, eyeing the door nervously.

  “A group of Gryffindor first years — ”

  The common room collectively groaned and/or burst into infuriated whispers.

  Snape held up a hand. “Quiet. A group of Gryffindor first years decided it fit to go actively hunting out the troll. None were injured.” He didn’t look entirely pleased with this last statement.

  “It was FUCKING POTTER, wasn’t it?!” Luce yelled out.

  Snape’s whole face curled in displeasure as he confirmed this.

  Fucking Potter.

* * *

  Granger had apparently been part of the group that had fought the troll. She was acting even more insufferable than usual, and was accompanied by Weasley Jr and Potter most of the time now.

  It was stupidly pointless, in Claire’s opinion, for the teachers to attempt to withhold the identity of the ‘trio of Gryffindor first year students’ who ‘subdued’ the troll. Anyone with brains could have pointed out those three. Claire didn’t care enough how the troll was subdued, only that it was. She wasn’t going to make a habit out of fighting trolls, and she didn’t want to listen to HBA’s rants during potions about how it had happened, so it didn’t matter to Claire.

  It mattered a great deal to Malfoy, as predicted.

  The first couple of days after the incident, many people wanted to know how three first year Gryffindors had fought a troll. After a week, most of the excitement had dimmed down and irritation quickly took its place. Because much like the Potter-getting-on-the-Gryffindor-Quidditch-team, Malfoy could not let it go.

  And then the Quidditch season started again, with the upcoming game of Gryffindor playing Slytherin, and all of a sudden Malfoy was talking of Potter getting onto the Quidditch team again and any room with him in it was no longer safe.

  He was quickly quietened in the common room by older students, irritated far more quickly this time around, but they couldn’t stop him ranting about it in every single freaking class .

  Claire didn’t think he could rant about it any longer. And then the actual day came. If she had to listen to I can’t believe Potter got on the Gryffindor Quidditch team one more time, she was going to kill Malfoy herself. She’d be assisted by literally every person in Slytherin ever.

  She almost didn’t go to the game, she was so annoyed at Malfoy’s never-ending rants. Slytherin was probably now the most open house other than Gryffindor to Potter being on the team for the sole reason that Malfoy had talked their ear off about it and none of them gave a shit anymore.

  That didn’t mean that when Potter’s broom started trying to violently throw him off, their house wasn’t laughing and jeering, because they were and he deserved it, the prick.

  Luce was blabbing in Claire’s ear about safety regulations again the minute she noticed Potter’s broom go berserk. She really needed to accept a loss. It wasn’t like Claire could do anything about it.

  Slytherins started cheering loudly. Claire wasn’t sure if it was about the point they’d scored, or Potter almost being violently thrown off his broom. It could be either, to be perfectly honest.

  Everyone else seemed rather slow to realise something had happened to Potter. Then again, all the other houses didn’t have Draco Malfoy narrating Potter’s every move.

  Everyone in the stands, person by person, started pointing up at Potter standing up in abject terror, and the weasel twins were hovering underneath him, trying to catch him when he inevitably fell.

  Claire wasn’t too worried about Potter. She didn’t want to see him fall and break his neck and die, but she figured that that was out of the realm of possibility due to it being freaking Harry Potter and also there were many professors there. They might not have been quick enough to save Neville, but everyone could see Potter’s fall coming. Feather-light charms and cushioning charms existed. Like, come on guys, grow some brain cells.

  Also the longer Potter struggled with his broom, the more goals Flint could score without anyone looking. You’d think Quidditch-manic Wood would notice the quaffle going past him five times, but nope.

  Something abruptly moved behind Claire, almost completely knocking her forward.

  “Hey, watch where you’re going.” She whirled around to growl at the person, who continued sprinting towards the end of her row, disrupting more people.

  The general disrespect and annoying air oozing out from her should have been enough to identify Claire’s attacker as none other than HBA herself, but the bushy, untamed hair and red robes helped to cement this knowledge.

  “What is she — ?” Claire pointed it out to Luce just as flames curled up the edges of Snape’s robes.

  Claire’s jaw dropped, her shock increasing when Snape noticed and Granger scooped the fire off him and vanished. In full sight of at least five other Slytherins, who were now making eye contact like did you — did you fucking see that too? That wasn’t just me. Granger just — holy shit okay .

  Claire only dragged her eyes back to the game when screaming erupted again. She half hoped it was Potter falling off his broom — that would have been interesting — but no. he was safely on the ground, holding the golden snitch above his head.

  Figures.

  Only Potter would catch the snitch on his Hogwarts-funded broom that tried to violently attack him. Oh Merlin, now Claire’s train of thought sounded like an inevitable Malfoy lecture and she and the rest of her house was never going to hear the end of this.

* * *

  Why was it, that when Claire approached Professor Snape with a concern over his legitimate attacker and names of all the witnesses that saw it too as proof, that because he was talking to, or standing near McGonagall, that it turned into a yelling lecture on blaming troubles on ‘good students like Miss Granger’ for the sole reason that ‘she’s a muggleborn’.

  Claire wasn’t being fucking prejudiced, she saw it happen ! At least five other Slytherins saw it happen but nooo, they were all blood purist and Slytherins and couldn’t be trusted and the reputation of one Gryffindor first year who had literally just fought a fucking troll far preceded the word of six Slytherin students.

  Of course.

  How did no one else see the blatant favouritism?

  Snape had to step in to stop McGonagall yelling at Claire, taking a bunch of points from Slytherin and giving her a detention (she was telling the truth , what was this bullshit ). He told Claire he’d take care of it and to go back to her common room.

  And of course, in the confused celebrations of the post-game, Claire had completely lost Luce, and now Luce was undoubtedly doing some dumb shit that would get her killed and that would be Claire’s problem because Claire was a ‘bad, prejudiced student’ who ‘hated muggleborns and anyone related to a muggleborn’. And Luce was very publicly related to a muggleborn. So obviously Luce getting herself killed by a three-headed dog was some nefarious scheme of Claire’s for Luce to die. Claire had been literally dragging her away from the stupid dog this whole time.

  Oh Merlin.

  The three-headed dog.

  The three-headed dog that Claire had been fighting Luce tooth, nail and claw to stay away from.

  And now Luce had disappeared.

  Claire didn’t want to run. But Luce had a gods-knows-how-long headstart. Claire had been yelled at for a long time.

  Claire hated her life.

* * *

  Luce wasn’t there when Claire arrived at the third-floor corridor. But she would be. So now Claire had time to fix her hair so she didn’t look entirely like a sweaty, undignified mudblood who had just run all the way there.

  She even got to lean dramatically against the door like she was completely in control of the situation and almost bored at the prospect when Luce rounded the corner, arms full of food.

  Luce’s expression when she saw Claire already there was comical.

  “Well well well.” Claire drawled, finding great amusement in how Luce completely froze when she saw her. “Look what the cat dragged in.”

  “I’m going to see Missy.” Luce said, eyes narrowing in determination.

  “No you’re not.” Claire rolled her eyes. “Where did you get that food?”

  Luce shrugged as well as she could while balancing the pile. “The kitchens. The Hufflepuffs showed me. You know. When you were being an asshole and ignoring me.”

  Claire tilted her head and raised her eyebrows in amusement. “Is this some pity tactic? You try to make me feel bad so I’ll let us both get eaten by the dog?”

  Luce shifted a bit. “Is it working?”

  “No.”

  “Then no. All my tactics work.”

  Claire snorted. “Since when?”

  Luce smiled wickedly. “We can train Missy to bite Granger.”

  Claire’s amusement immediately faded into a scowl. Because that, if anything, would be the exact reason Claire would open that door.

  Luce’s grin expanded so she looked completely mad. “I knew HBA pissed you off.”

  Claire glared at her for a count of three before sheepishly avoiding her eyes.

  “Do you think that would work?”

  Luce looked smug and stepped forward triumphantly. “We’ll find out. I brought the food to bribe Missy with anyway.”

  Claire stepped back to survey the door. “I’m going to regret this so bad. Our deaths are going to be so painful.”

  “Nope!” Luce said and basically kicked Claire forward again. “You need to open the door, my hands are full.”

Chapter Text

  Six months later, it seemed their progress with Missy was — progressing.

  After an incident involving Claire, the dog’s very sharp teeth, a lot of blood and an emergency visit to the Hospital Wing, Luce had taken to being Missy primary ‘trainer’. Claire got to sit a safe distance away (not free, never free) and fume about how Madam Pomfrey didn’t believe the ‘owls attacked me and caused me to fall down the stairs’ lie Claire had made up on the spot while profusely bleeding out . And even after that nightmare, Claire didn’t get to run away. No. She had to continue visiting this nightmare dog that Luce treated like the most adorable puppy in the world.

  Claire normally brought along her own snacks and homework from various classes, though she spent more time watching to make sure Missy didn’t attack Luce as well, than she did actual work.

  Not to mention five months after their nightmare training had begun, Luce had ruined their potion. Not altogether out of the ordinary. Snape’s assigned foot-long essay on the proper way to brew a Wiggenweld Potion, detailing exactly where they went wrong, did annoy Claire a bit. Luce absolutely refusing to write the essay and wanting to copy off Claire annoyed her more. HBA being HBA about it annoyed her the most. Stupid buck toothed little Gryffindors and their righteousness.

  All that to say, Claire was even more pissed about going to visit Missy that night, and had decided to bring along the music box Luce hated, just to spite her. Only for it to make Missy drop to the ground snoring the second the music started.

  It had taken them five months of bringing food to stop Missy wanting to attack them on a good day. And the second the tinkling sounds from Claire’s music box hit the air, Missy dropped down, asleep.

  Claire couldn’t visit Missy for a week out of rage. All those times she had almost gotten killed by this stupid dog, and it could have all been avoided by singing a few notes.

  Luce wouldn’t let her stay away from Missy long. Claire was the musically talented of the two (thank you, pureblood customs that Luce never seemed to abide by), so Claire had to be there to see just what kinds of music sent Missy off to sleep.

   Everything . 

Everything related to music worked.

  Claire’s well-practiced singing. Luce’s off-key screeching. Music boxes. The half-decent scales Claire could play on the violin (she really needed to practice that more, her tutor was going to murder her). Humming. Tapping a beat against thighs, the floor, the walls. Clapping if it was done in a recognisable tune and not just noise. Tapping and clapping was admittedly harder to get Missy to sleep, but if Claire did it well enough, it worked.

  All of those times Missy had tried to attack them, and the time she actually had, and all Claire had needed to do was tap against the wall, tap-tap- tap -tap.

  Their visits to Missy frequently increased with this knowledge. Luce was suddenly dragging Claire to the forbidden corridor every night of the week, not just twice a week.

  It was a great excuse to practice her instruments, Claire thought miserably as she was dragged once again out of her bed to go hang out with Missy.

  Normally, just before midnight, all the students had left the common room, and Luce and Claire could leave without fuss. The occasional sighting of a fifth or seventh year student cramming for their upcoming assessments and exams was becoming more common, but they never cared about the two first years sneaking out so long as those two first years didn’t get the Slytherin house as a whole into trouble. If they got detentions, that was their fault. If they lost a lot of house points, it became everyone’s problem and no one was happy.

 * * * 

  Luce had told Claire they weren’t going to visit Missy on Saturday. They had gone every single other day of this week . Claire was even more of a bitch when she was sleep deprived and stressed about the exam-preparation homework their professors just kept giving them. And after the Friday insulting-Luce’s-whole-family-and-cursing-out-her-bloodline incident, Luce agreed to finally let Claire sleep through the night.

  Luce was a massive liar.

  Claire was still very much asleep when the bed-sheets were ripped away from her and she was aggressively shoved off her bed to fall onto the floor. As a result, Luce got slapped in the face by a confused, sleep deprived pureblood who was certain she was being attacked.

  She was, just by, you know, someone who was supposed to be her friend.

  “Calm down!” Luce hissed, slapping Claire back. “It’s just me.”

  It took Claire a couple of minutes to recognise who her attacker was and what was going on.

  “No.”

  Luce pouted. “Pleeeeeeease?”

  “I’m not going to visit your stupid dog! You promised me I could sleep tonight.”

  “I retract that promise.”

  “You can’t do that.” Claire struggled to her feet and flopped back onto her bed. “Give me my blanket back. I want to sleep.”

  “I will shove you off your bed again.” Luce threatened.

  Claire shoved her face into her pillow. “And I will call your mother a mudblood whore again.”

  Luce ripped Claire’s pillow out from underneath her face and slammed it against the back of her bed in response. “Don’t do that.”

  Claire yelped and tried covering her head. “Let me sleeep .” She begged.

  “Come oooooon .” Luce pleaded in defiance of Claire’s one wish.

  Claire wasn’t asking for much. She wanted one night out of the week to sleep through instead of traipsing after a dog and singing for three hours straight. She’d lost her voice doing that far too many times.

  That was probably why Luce kept doing it, honestly, to make Claire lose her voice and effectively shut her up. Her throat hurt .

  Luce slammed Claire’s head with her pillow again.

  “I can do this all night.” Luce told her. “Or we can visit Missy for a few hours.”

  “Go by yourself.” Claire begged.

  Luce hit Claire again. “No. Come with me.”

  Claire groaned. She didn’t doubt Luce’s ability or stubbornness. She would beat Claire up all night with a pillow. Or perhaps she’d resort to just smothering her with it and Claire would die via pillow, at least she'd get a full night's rest, for eternity.

  “The seventh years will be in the common room.” Claire complained.

  “They never cared about us leaving before.” Luce thumped the pillow against Claire’s face again.

  “Alright, alright!” Claire tried to hit the pillow away. “Fine! Fuck you to the darkest pits of Hell, I’ll go.”

  Luce cheered quietly. It seemed that while she had no reservations in waking Claire up for the sixth night in a row, she had enough grace (or sense) in her to not wake the others. Pansy and Daphne would have slaughtered her. Lucky bitches.

  On a first glance, the common room was empty. It seemed that, having had a whole day off scheduled classes to study, the older students had allowed themselves one normal night’s worth of sleep.

  On a second glance, Claire noticed one Draco Malfoy sneaking out, platinum hair a distinct marker.

  Malfoy . Skulking around the common room this late.

  That was a new one.

  Unless, Claire reasoned, it was something to do with Potter. His obsession had not lessened in the slightest. Claire would bet her life that whatever Malfoy was doing away, it would relate in some way or another to something ‘odd’ Potter was doing.

  “Oh, it’s you.” Luce’s voice made Malfoy whirl around in shock.

  All three first years looked at each other in slight confusion.

  “What are you doing?” Malfoy and Luce demanded at the same time.

  “Nothing.” Claire lied, frowning. “What are you doing?”

  Malfoy tilted his head up importantly. “Potter and his friends are smuggling a dragon out. I’m going to catch them.”

  “A dragon?” Luce perked up.

  “No.” Claire snapped instantly. She already had to deal with Missy the nightmare dog, she didn’t want to have to train a dragon on top of that. No thank you, was not happening.

  She turned back to Malfoy. “Are you sure sneaking around after curfew is smart? The professors will catch you.”

  “I’ll just tell them about Potter and his friends.” Malfoy dismissed.

  Claire raised her eyebrows. “You think that will change anything? You, a ‘nasty blood purist Slytherin’ — oh, don’t look at me like that, Malfoy, you know that’s how everyone sees us — ”

  “But you are a nasty blood-purist.” Luce interjected.

  Claire elected to ignore her friend. “Against the word of what, three golden Gryffindors? You’ll never be believed.”

  “He’s going to the Astronomy Tower to meet with Weasel’s dragon-tamer brother to get rid of the baby dragon that oaf Hagrid bred. I’ll catch him in the middle of that action. The professors will have to punish him. I found their letter when Weasel was in the Hospital Wing with his dragon-bite.”

  Huh. Claire had noticed the absence of an annoying ginger in some of her classes. Serve him right, if he was meddling with illegal baby dragons.

  Malfoy’s face suddenly gained a wicked gleam. “You should come too.”

  “What?” Claire exclaimed as Luce shook her head and said “I’m not a narc!”

  “But it’s Potter and that mudblood Granger.” Malfoy pressed.

  “Yeah, and as nice as it sounds to get them into trouble, all the evidence in the world couldn’t incriminate perfect Potter.” Claire snapped before she could get ahead of herself.

  Luce nodded. “Yeah, we’re good. You have fun with that though.”

  “I’ll pay you!” Malfoy said desperately when Claire and Luce had turned away to leave.

  Both girls turned back slowly.

  “How much money are we talking?”

  Malfoy looked triumphant. “Two galleons.”

  “Split?” Claire scoffed. It might not have been that hard to sway her away from visiting Missy. But it was more than two galleons hard. Missy was moderately cooperating. A dragon was sure to be a bigger pain in Claire’s ass. Malfoy’s family was loaded. He could give more than two galleons split between them.

  “Each, final offer.” Malfoy decided.

  “We’re doing you a favour here.” Luce said, unimpressed. “And aren’t you running out of time to catch them in the act?”

  Malfoy looked at the door uneasily, then back at the two girls, in identical judgemental positions.

  “Three galleons split.”

  Claire stared at him. “That’s worse than your last offer. Try again.”

  “Three galleons each, final offer.”

  “Four each.” Luce stared Malfoy down.

  Malfoy hesitated, eyes darting around for another answer, or leverage.

  “Four each is being generous.” Claire told him sweetly. “We could always just go back to bed.”

  And now she wanted Malfoy to refuse so she could say ‘well! We tried! Off to bed!’

  Luce would only wait until Malfoy had left and then drag her out to visit Missy anyway, but it was a nice desperate final thought of escape.

  “Fine!” Malfoy snapped. “I’ll give you the money later. We need to hurry up.”

  Claire wanted to dig her heels in and refuse to go until she’d seen the money. You know, like every other good business woman.

  But Luce Hamza , the master of running headfirst into whatever dangerous, annoying and inconveniencing thing she could find, agreed instantly and marched out the common room first. So now Claire had no choice but to accept a lousy four galleons for the price of her troubles and follow Luce.

  But hey. At least Malfoy was actually going to pay her. Luce paid her in pain. Lots of it. When Missy attacked her.

  Almost as if she could hear Claire’s thoughts {and had the intellect to comprehend them}, Luce turned so she was walking backwards so she could look at Claire.

  “You’re off the hook for tonight, you bitch.”

  “I thought we were dealing with a dragon.” Claire raised an eyebrow. “Hardly seems ‘off the hook’.”

  “Hmm.” Luce looked at Malfoy. “How big is this dragon? Key detail you left out. The price might have to go up if it’s a really big one.”

  “We’ve already agreed on a price.” Malfoy said, like a little cunning bitch. “And we shouldn’t have to interact with the dragon at all.”

  He was evading the question so badly it had to be a full-size Ukrainian Ironbelly they were dealing with. And in that case, fuck any deal, Claire was running {yes, running !} in the opposite direction.

  “In no way, shape or form did that answer her question.” Claire tried to control her tone of voice and breathing.

  Malfoy mumbled something under his breath.

  Luce was starting to look alarmed at this point. Oh good, she still had some, however minimal, survival instincts. “What?”

  “It’s a baby.” Malfoy said louder, sure to make his reluctance to disclose this fact clear.

  Any trace of hey maybe this is a bad idea after all vanished from Luce’s face.

  Claire had to restrain herself from screaming.

  A baby dragon was perhaps slightly more manageable than a full-sized one.

  A Luce Hamza around a baby dragon, on the other hand, was not. A Luce Hamza who had a fondness for monstrous creatures and adopting and/or training them, around a baby dragon .

  Claire was never going to know a moment of peace ever again.

  “A baby dragon?!” Luce squealed, perfectly on cue.

  Malfoy gave her an odd look.

  “But they’re getting rid of the highly illegal , deadly , can and will burn you to ashes dragon, aren’t they?” Claire pointed every word with deadly sharp emphasis. They were not adopting a dragon. They were not, Claire refused .

  “Yes, so we have to catch them in the act.” Malfoy said, nonplussed.

  Luce looked crushed. “But … the dragon …”

  “No.” Claire hissed.

  She grabbed a fistful of Luce’s shirt and pulled her closer. “I’m telling you this loudly and clearly. No . We are not stealing or borrowing or briefly kidnapping or holding for ransom or taking that dragon in any name, way, shape or form. We are not training the dragon. We are not keeping the dragon. Not this one, or the next one, or any one. Ever . Do you hear and understand me? The only association we will have with this dragon is to get rid of it, to hand it over to responsible adults of which you are not . No dragon.”

  Luce pouted. “I can’t see a loophole.” She drew out the last word in sadness, trying to widen her eyes and stick out her bottom lip to look innocent and hard to disagree with.

  Claire dropped her. “That’s the point.”

  Luce scowled, all pretence of innocence lost. “You’re mean to me.”

  “You’re trying to get us eaten by a dragon.”

  “But if we could just tame it — ”

  “We are not taming the dragon!” Claire’s voice rose to a hysterical pitch. She was probably one protest away from a full-blown, sleep-deprived meltdown, complete with screaming and crying and sobbing about the lack of a minute’s peace.

  “Why would that even be a thing that would cross your mind?” Malfoy demanded of Luce, looking aghast.

  Luce waved a hand to dismiss his very valid concern. “It’s an adorable baby dragon, please — ”

  “How many times do I have to tell you no?!”

  Luce’s complaint died when she rounded the corner and her face was overtaken by such horror, that Claire thought perhaps Snape had emerged to drag them back to their dorms in a bright pink dressing robe. Or Missy had escaped. Or there was another troll, like the one there had been at Halloween.

  It was a tabby cat. Or at least, Claire thought it was. She didn’t exactly get a good look at it before Luce grabbed her arm and almost wrenched it out of its socket to drag her away into a sudden, unbidden bout of sprinting.

  It was like Luce wanted Claire to murder her. Although, with Luce’s tendency to run {and drag a very unwilling Claire with her} towards certain death, Claire really shouldn’t be surprised.

  Luce only consented to slow down once they had run what felt like half the castle. Claire didn’t have the breath nor energy to ask her what the fuck had just happened, but her half-hearted oh my god where is the oxygen, fuck you man, but like … let me struggle to breath first oh sweet motherloving merlin help me glare must have gotten the message across enough.

  “That was McGonagall.” Luce looked around them nervously.

  Claire despised the fact she didn’t look like she was struggling to breathe at all, while she was an undignified sweaty gasping mess.

  “What?”

  Luce pointed in the direction they had just run from. “That cat. That was McGonagall. She can turn into a cat.”

  “How do you know that that particular cat was McGonagall?” If Luce was right, it kinda made sense. Of course it would be McGonagall of all the professors.

  If Luce was wrong, however, and had just made Claire sprint half the castle for nothing, Luce was getting murdered.

  Luce got a far away, haunted look across her face.

  “I pet her.” She whispered like she was telling the story of fallen friends.

  Claire stared at her. “You what?”

  Luce shivered. “In our first week. She was a cute cat and I leaned down and all of a sudden it’s Professor McGonagall.”

  Claire needed a minute to process this. Then she needed multiple minutes to point and laugh at her unfortunate friend.

  “It’s not funny!” Luce exclaimed. “It’s very traumatic! They called me a furry lover for weeks!”

  Any control Claire had gained over herself was immediately lost again.

  “Stop laughing .” Luce whined. “I’ll feed you to Missy.”

  “I’m the one stopping Missy from attacking us, I’m literally fine.”

  “Not if I feed you to the baby dragon I know is at the Astronomy Tower.” Luce taunted, and then ran off again. In the direction of the Astronomy Tower. Where the baby dragon was.

  “FUCK.”

* * *

  Malfoy got himself caught, predictably. And thanks to Luce, the girls did not.

  Then again, it was also thanks to Luce they were doing it in the first place, so Claire wasn’t going to fall down at Luce’s feet in praise and gratitude.

  By the time Claire and Luce got to the Astronomy Tower, Potter and Granger were mid latching a large, violently thrashing crate into a harness with four presumable-dragon-tamers. All six misdoers froze when the two girls appeared, staring at them with wide eyes.

  Luce pointed at the crate. “Nice dragon you’ve got there.”

  “Very illegal.” Claire said mildly. “I’m sure Professor Dumbledore would be delighted to learn of this.”

  From Granger and Potter’s stricken faces, you’d think they didn’t have Golden-Gryffindor-immunity. Or perhaps they were simply too oblivious to the favouritism.

  Claire wasn’t, however. Which meant she could have fun threatening them, but if she actually went to Dumbledore with a concern over golden, Boy-Who-Lived Potter and muggle-born star-pupil Granger, she’d be herself given a detention and an hour long lecture on the importance of valuing all students regardless of blood status (because naturally, a muggle born student could do wrong, it was all the pureblood’s fault. That wasn’t equality , by the way) and how dangerous it was to tell such dangerous lies.

  At the end of the day, Claire would prefer to avoid that lecture. If possible, she’d set it up so the professors could walk in on Potter and Granger doing their illegal stuff and they’d simply bring about their own downfall, but tonight she wanted to go back to bed.

  “You can’t tell anyone.” Granger begged. “Hagrid would get into so much trouble.”

  “He should!” Luce exclaimed. “Raising a dragon on a school campus. How dangerous is that? Some students could get hurt!”

  Claire used her tremendous willpower to not turn to look at Luce incredulously with an ‘are you fucking kidding me, since when have you cared about people getting hurt while training dangerous and illegal animals, you literally almost got me killed so many times with Missy, you wanted to steal this dragon and raise it yourself are you shitting me right now?’

  She even resisted the urge to shove Luce off the Astronomy Tower. It was a miracle.

  “That’s why you have to let us get rid of it.” Potter pleaded.

  “You and your illegal trespassers?” Claire scoffed. “You might get a slap on the wrist because you’re young, but they’re over age and consorting with dangerous, illegal dragon smuggling. That’s Azkaban worthy.”

  One of the dragon tamers stepped forward, taking off his hooded robe to reveal a moderately handsome face, ruined by all the tattle-tale Weasley freckles and red hair.

  “No one has to know.” He sounded a lot more calm and reasonable about the situation, as opposed to Granger and Potter’s hysterical screeching.

  “We just want to remove the dragon so it doesn’t hurt anyone.”

  Claire scoffed. “Like we’re going to listen to your … excuses …” She trailed off when her look at Luce for support resulting in her seeing a drooling pre-teen girl with a new obsession.

  “Luce.” Claire tried not to slap her.

  “I can fix him.” Luce whispered breathlessly.

  “That is a Weasley, there are no fixing Weasleys.”

  “He doesn’t have to stay a Weasley.”

  It was time to leave.

  “Good luck explaining the seducing of an underage girl to your criminal record along with all this dragon smuggling.” Claire grabbed Luce’s arm and dragged her down the stairs.

  “I don’t wanna narc.” Luce whined, trying to snatch her arm back.

  “Malfoy would have, so we need to leave before we get caught too.” Claire said clipply.

  Luce had to consider this for a couple of seconds, before ultimately deciding that was a fair point, and they should definitely run back to their common room.

  Claire had probably been running for A WHOLE HOUR BY NOW and she was going to murder Luce when they got back to their dorm.

  Which wouldn’t be for another hour or so since, naturally, they got caught, so all that running was FUCKING USELESS. Claire was honestly, perhaps, more pissed about all the running than being yelled at for half an hour by a furious McGonagall. Something about a cock-and-bull story about a dragon and Draco Malfoy and Potter and Granger and Neville Longbottom (because he got involved somehow). Claire wasn’t really paying much attention. She was being yelled at for a good thirty minutes, about a few key points that were complete bullshit and victim blaming, that Claire knew of. She didn’t need to listen to McGonagall’s infuriating voice.

  There was even the predictable ‘getting good students like Luce Hamza into trouble because of her lesser blood status’. Claire fucking called it.

  Because first of all, it was Luce getting Claire into trouble, running off training three-headed dogs and dragons, not the other way around. Second of all, Claire wasn’t even that much of a snobby blood purist asshole. She could see how the iceblood incident and her behaviour at the beginning of the year could get that message across, but after being friends with a girl who could and would murder you in your sleep for calling her mother a mudblood, you learnt to not call her mother a mudblood . And now Claire had the fear of God instilled in her and was almost too afraid to call anyone a mudblood. In front of Luce anyway.

  Basically Claire was getting a lot of shit for supposedly being a blood purist and trying to get ‘good students’ into trouble because they were muggleborn, or related to muggleborns. Which was bullshit because those supposedly ‘good students’ were Granger and Luce. Both of them were fucking menaces to society and needed to stop getting Claire into trouble.

  Slytherin ended up losing quite a few points that night. Claire’s only consolation was that Gryffindor lost more, as well as their chance for the end of year House Cup, but it would have been nicer if she didn’t have a freaking detention with them.

  On the topic of the detention, they got it for ‘wandering about after curfew, how dangerous’ blah blah blah. And their detention? Eleven o’clock at night. At the entrance hall, suggesting a high possibility of leaving the castle to do dangerous shit outside after curfew .

  Make it make sense.

  “This is so retarded.” Claire muttered, angrily kicking a loose rock.

  “Do you have to say that a hundred times over?” Luce snapped. “We know it’s retarded.”

  “ Do you have to say that a hundred times over ,” Claire mocked. “Shut the fuck up, this is all your fault.”

  “How is this my fault?!”

  “If you didn’t have a habit for running headfirst into certain death — ” Claire stopped when she realised exactly where they were going.

  Another point to her the point of this detention is so fucking stupid — Hagrid had been wrapped up in the dragon drama somehow. And now they were headed straight for his ‘house’. Next to the Forbidden Forest. In the dead of night.
  Did this school even try to make any form of logical sense? 

  Claire should have gone to Durmstrang with the rest of her siblings.

  Potter and Granger were the only ones looking somewhat relieved and happy to be heading to Hagrid’s hut. Something Claire was eternally pissed about (this was all their fault why did they get off lightly ) and Filch was quick to quench their relief.

  “I suppose you think you’ll be enjoying yourself with that oaf? Well, think again, boy — it’s into the forest you’re going and I’m much mistaken if you’ll all come out in one piece.”

  Longbottom let out a little moan. Malfoy stopped dead in his tracks. Potter and Granger froze. Even Luce looked at the looming trees with slight reservance (which was rich coming from the girl who complained about wanting to go there to hunt unicorns).

  “Oh for fuck’s sake.” Claire complained. “We’re twelve . Are they trying to kill us all off? This school is fucking retarded.”

  “The forest?” Malfoy sounded half terrified. “We can’t go in there at night — there’s all sorts of things in there — werewolves, I heard.”

  Claire turned to squint at the moon. The forest having werewolves? Sounded about right. It looked like a full moon too, or at least damn near close.

  “That’s your problem, isn’t it?” said Filch, his voice cracking with glee. “Should’ve thought of them werewolves before you got in trouble, shouldn’t you?”

  Claire turned to glare at Luce.

  “Oh, yeah, just blame this whole thing on me, huh?” Luce huffed.

  “It is your fault!” Claire stamped her foot.

  The crossbow and quiver of arrows Hagrid came out carrying did not make Claire feel any better about her situation.

  “Abou’ time,” Hagrid said. “I bin waitin’ fer half an hour already. All right, Harry, Hermione?”

  “I shouldn’t be too friendly to them, Hagrid,” said Filch coldly, “they’re here to be punished, after all.”

  “That’s why yer late, is it?” said Hagrid, frowning at Filch. “Bin lecturin’ them, eh? ‘Snot your place ter do that. Yeh’ve done yer bit, I’ll take over from here.”

  “I’ll be back at dawn,” said Filch, “for what’s left of them,” he added nastily, and he turned and started back toward the castle, his lamp bobbing away in the darkness.

  Malfoy turned to Hagrid. “I’m not going in that forest.”

  “Yeh are if yeh want ter stay at Hogwarts,” said Hagrid fiercely. “Yeh’ve done wrong an’ now yeh’ve got ter pay fer it.”

  Claire was completely fucking innocent here. Wandering around after hours — no, being dragged protesting out of bed to wander around after hours — did not deserve to have her life put into danger. Filch wasn’t even being dramatic, Claire could very well die in this forest.

  It seemed, however, only her and Malfoy — the ‘bad guys’ — saw this very pressing concern.

  “But this is servant stuff, it’s not for students to do.” Malfoy protested. “I thought we’d be copying lines or something, if my father knew I was doing this, he’d — ”

  “ — tell yer that’s how it is at Hogwarts,” Hagrid growled.

  Claire snorted. Lucious Malfoy, being perfectly fine with his only son and heir being sent to the Forbidden Forest for no valid reason? Yeah right.

  “Copyin’ lines! What good’s that ter anyone? Yeh’ll do summat useful or yeh’ll get out. If yeh think yer father’d rather you were expelled, then get back off ter the castle an’ pack. Go on.”

  Malfoy didn’t move. He looked at Hagrid furiously, but then dropped his gaze.

  Claire wasn’t ready to drop this subject. They couldn’t expel her for refusing to put her life in danger, surely .

  “If you think this ‘work’ is worth the lawsuit coming your way for putting underage children into unnecessary, life threatening danger, continue right on.”

  Because Claire was twelve, her threat was not taken seriously. Because the school was that stupid and cared that little, they would expel Claire for refusing to put her life in danger.

  She was going to survive this night out of anger and spite.

  “Right then,” said Hagrid, “now, listen carefully, ‘cause it’s dangerous what we’re gonna do tonight, an’ I don’ want no one takin’ risks. Follow me over here a moment.”

  He led them to the very edge of the forest. Holding his lamp up high, he pointed down a narrow, winding earth track that disappeared into the thick black trees. A light breeze lifted their hair as they looked into the forest.

  “Look there,” said Hagrid, “see that stuff shinin’ on the ground? Silvery stuff? That’s unicorn blood. There’s a unicorn in there bin hurt badly by summat.”

  They were hunting something that was desperate enough and able to hunt down a unicorn, injure in, and probably use its blood.

  Yeah, definitely stuff to make a bunch of twelve year olds do.

  “This is the second time in a week. I found one dead last Wednesday. We’re gonna try an’ find the poor thing. We might have ter put it out of its misery.”

  “You want us to kill a unicorn ?” Claire snapped, aghast.

  “And what if whatever hurt the unicorn finds us first?” said Malfoy, unable to keep the fear out of his voice.

  “There’s nothin’ that lives in the forest that’ll hurt yeh if yer with me or Fang,” said Hagrid.

  Claire looked at the half-giant. Then at his monster of a dog. Then at the forest.

  She was not in the slightest bit safe.

  “An’ keep ter the path. Right, now, we’re gonna split inter two parties an’ follow the trail in diff’rent directions.”

  “We’re splitting up?” Luce demanded. “Have you ever seen a horror movie?” She gestured at the forest. “Perfect place for some psychopathic killer to be waiting for us … lurking in the shadows … picking us off one by one …”

  She grabbed Claire from behind. “RAGH!”

  Luce darted away again before she could get punched in the face.

  “Nothin’ll hurt yeh in there if yeh with me or Fang.” Hagrid repeated. “Bu’ there’s blood all over the place, it must’ve bin staggerin’ around since last night at least.”

  “I want Fang,” said Malfoy quickly, looking at Fang’s long teeth.

  “All right, but I warn yeh, he’s a coward,” said Hagrid. “So me, Harry, Hermione, and Claire’ll go one way an’ Luce, Draco, Neville, an’ Fang’ll go the other.”

  “What?!” Claire screeched. “I don’t want to go with them!”

  “Tough.” Hagrid said. “Now, if any of us finds the unicorn, we’ll send up green sparks, right? Get yer wands out an’ practice now — that’s it — an’ if anyone gets in trouble, send up red sparks, an’ we’ll all come an’ find yeh — so, be careful — let’s go.”

  The forest was black and silent. It was silent, at least, until Luce and Claire both entered, with Luce just generally being a loud annoying person, and Claire being pissed off at the whole situation.

  A little way into it they reached a fork in the earth path. Potter, Granger, and Hagrid dragged Claire onto the left path while Luce, Malfoy, Longbottom, and Fang took the right.

  “I can’t believe you’re ditching me.” Claire hissed at Luce, who’s response was poking her tongue out and flipping her off. Because Luce was an asshole that Claire didn’t know why she hung around.

  They walked in silence, their eyes on the ground. Claire didn’t have anything nice to say to the others, and she was severely outnumbered in the fighting-back department.

  Every now and then a ray of moonlight through the branches above lit a spot of silver-blue blood on the fallen leaves.

  “Yeh know, yeh ought teh be nicer to yeh friend.” Hagrid spoke up, completely unprompted and very much unwanted.

  “I’m nice to Luce.” Claire was torn between wanting to aggressively stamp on all the leaves and twigs that came in her path to release her anger at the whole situation, and wanting to be quiet so nothing attacked her as her group. She was too beautiful to die with ugly people like Hagrid and Potter and Granger.

  “Yeh think that blamin’ her feh this whole thing is nice?” Hagrid’s voice was filled with judgement.

  “It’s her fault. What does it matter to you anyway?”

  “All I’m sayin’ is I wouldna want to be yeh friend if yeh treated me like that.”

  Claire felt a conflicting mix of fuck off Hagrid no one fucking asked and an icy, creeping am I a bad friend? kind of anxiety she hadn’t felt before slowly threatening to overcome her anger.

  “Yeah, well, she’s my friend not yours.” Claire stomped ahead angrily. Stupid Hagrid and his stupid manipulating words making her feel stupid and worthless.

  “I don’t know why you bother, Hagrid.” Potter said faintly behind her. “She’s a mean person. We all think Luce should leave her, but she won’t listen when we bring it up with her.”

  Claire snapped on the next couple of twigs with renewed anger. “I can FUCKING HEAR YOU.”

  Crunching leaves told Claire Potter had jumped at her shout. Good. The bastard was trying to manipulate Luce into leaving her for some pre-made up Claire is an awful person vendetta they all had against her.

  You did publically humiliate her that one time . A nasty voice whispered in the back of her mind. And you yell at her a lot … blame her for everything that goes wrong in your life …

  Claire almost fell into the stream, which was really points for surviving the hell forest. Great watching where she was going, and everything. Stupid fucking Hagrid and Potter who didn’t know when the shut the fuck up.

  There were too many spots of unicorn blood along the winding path for Claire’s liking. She knew what unicorn blood did, knew how it rescued you for the brink of death, at the cost of then cursing your life. Only a very desperate kind of monster would kill a unicorn to drink its blood and live longer.

  A very desperate kind of monster that Claire did not want to meet anytime soon.

  She could hear the others whispering behind her and the crunching of the leaves under their feet.

  Then — that sound was … was slithering almost, and definitely not a unicorn, and very likely not Luce and her group — 

  Claire basically dropped to the ground, crouching near a clump of bushes that towered over her head when she curled up.

  Hagrid realised something was wrong, and instead of doing the smart thing and silently alerting the other two to the danger so they could hide, he bellowed “GET BEHIND THAT TREE!” loud enough for whatever that thing was that was lurking nearby, and every other creature liable to want them dead to hear, pinpoint their exact location and slaughter them.

  If Claire was still alive in ten minutes, assuming the unicorn-killing monster had passed, she’d kill the incompetent oaf herself.

  As it was, she was forced to stay crouched down in the muddy bushes that scratched up her arms if she dared to even breathe, but offered her protection from the thing ’s sight.

  The slithering sound got closer, like a cloak trailing along the ground. Claire stopped breathing. A dark shape, vaguely resembling a person covered head to toe in a cloak seemed to hesitate five feet from Claire’s clump of bushes.

  It moved on.

  Claire inhaled shakily. She didn’t dare leave the safety of the bushes until she heard Hagrid and Potter’s distinct voices.

  “A werewolf?” Potter seemed to hyperfixate on this idea. Malfoy might have brought it up, but Potter had mentioned it again at least three times.

  “That wasn’ no werewolf an’ it wasn’ no unicorn, neither,” said Hagrid grimly. “Right, where’s the other one?”

  Claire felt more than a little annoyed at this casual dismissal of her after a very real, likely deadly threat. She supposed she should just suck it up and rejoin their suicide group, though — they’d leave her behind if she hesitated too long, assuming her to be dead and just moving forward with their lives.

  Hagrid only nodded when Claire popped into view, picking the twigs and thorns out of her hair and arms and muttering curses under her breath. If it had been Potter who had hidden further away from the group while they were hunted down, Hagrid probably would have charged the monster himself to save golden Boy-Who-Lived Potter. It was alright that it was blood-purist bad-friend Claire Belstring though.

  Goddammit, this whole I wouldn’t wanna be your friend if you treated me like this and she’s a piece of shit person I don’t know why you bother had really gotten to her head. It was just stupid Hagrid and fucking Potter, who were responsible for the whole thing in the first place. Why should she care what they thought?

  They walked more slowly this time. Hagrid decided for some godforsaken reason that he had to make special sure that Claire was with the group this time, often by impatient gesturing for her to hurry up or basically yelling at her to wait for them. Honestly. She wasn’t going to stab them in the back or plot an attack with the mysterious unicorn-hunting monster thing.

  Something moved ahead and Claire almost bolted the fuck out of there.

  “Who’s there?” Hagrid called. “Show yerself — I’m armed!”

  It was a centaur. A centaur Hagrid apparently knew and who said that Mars was bright multiple times with other nonsense riddle speak, how the innocent were the first victims and the forest hides a bunch of secrets, ‘Mars is bright tonight’ again , and then another centaur came. Same exact thing ‘Mars is bright’. What did that have to do with the injured unicorns?!

  The centaurs left shortly after, but Claire was sure they had to be following them from a distance or something, because she was definitely being watched.

  Sparks shot into the air, filling the forest with an eerie red glow that had Claire instantly panicking.

  “You three wait here!” Hagrid shouted. “Stay on the path, I’ll come back for yeh!”

  He didn’t waste time being quiet. Quite the opposite in fact, Claire was sure anything trying to attack the other group with be deterred by the giant of a man crashing through the undergrowth, barrelling towards them.

  “You don’t think they’ve been hurt, do you?” Granger whispered.

  Knowing Luce, she’d probably try taming whatever dangerous creature tried to attack them. If worse came to worse, Luce could be pretty damn terrifying and knew how to fight.

  And she had two perfectly useless boys to throw at it as bait, giving herself time to get away.

  Either way, Luce wasn’t going down without kicking ,screaming and or biting. Claire didn’t give a shit if Longbottom or Malfoy got sacrificed in the process, as long as their deaths would be pointed as a fault of the school and its stupid justice system instead of a fault of Luce’s, and by extension, Claire’s.

  In fact, if something were to happen to Malfoy, it wouldn’t just be Claire’s threat of a lawsuit, it would be an actual lawsuit and people would get into serious trouble.

  “I don’t care if Malfoy has, but if something’s got Neville … it’s our fault he’s here in the first place.” Potter shook his head, before glaring at Claire, because he was stupid and didn’t realise they were all there because of his idiocracy. “I suppose you’d be pleased if something got Luce, huh? Get rid of your troublesome friend with her muggleborn mother.”

  Claire failed to contain her I cannot believe you had that thought in your head and decided to say it out loud look.

  “I don’t know what part of ‘Luce is my friend’ that you are not understanding, but frankly, your ignorance is none of my concern.”

  Potter was an uneducated twat who took a couple of minutes to comprehend what Claire had said. It wasn’t even a complicated sentence, but she supposed she shouldn’t expect Potter to understand big words like ‘ignorance’ and concepts like ‘none of my concern’. The absurdness of someone minding their own fucking business!

  A great crunching noise announced Hagrid’s return, with Luce, Malfoy, Neville, and Fang were with him. Hagrid was fuming. Luce looked pissed off.

  “Do you know how Neville got into Gryffindor because I’m sure you guys are just taking the piss out of me saying it’s the brave house.” Luce ignored the righteous Gryffindor outrage at the insulting of one of their own, to make her way over to complain to Claire.

  “I didn’t know boys’ voices could go that high. You’d think he was a six year old girl with how high-pitched he screamed when Malfoy grabbed him.” Luce paused to look at Potter, then at Claire with that mischievous look she got sometimes. “Do you think it’s a twelve year old Gryffindor boy thing? If we shoved Potter into a bush do you think he’d scream that high?”

  Hagrid practically yelled that they were changing groups. “Neville, you stay with me an’ Hermione, Harry, you go with the Slytherin girls, Fang, an’ this idiot. I’m sorry,” Hagrid added in a whisper to Harry, “but he’ll have a harder time frightenin’ you, an’ we’ve gotta get this done.”

  Potter looked at Luce and Claire with clear horror.

  “Aww, don’t be scared.” Claire couldn’t resist saying. “It’s not like you’ve spent the last half an hour loudly whispering behind my back that I’m a shit person who deserves to have her friends leave her in full hearing range of myself.” She then took a minute to mock consider this and comically widened her eyes. “Oh wait … wait isn’t that exactly what you did?”

  Luce narrowed her eyes. “He did what?”

  Potter gestured towards Claire frantically. “They’re going to eat me alive!”

  “Not as fast as you ate the entire compartment worth of sweets.” Claire muttered under her breath.

  Luce looked at Potter with scorn. “Snakes swallow their victims bit by bit, constricting their air supply so their prey is helpless as they slowly suffocate to death.”

  She turned and started marching back in the direction she’d just emerged from, pausing a few feet away to throw a careless, “Are you too pussy to come now, Potter?”

  Claire was both awed and terrified at Luce’s comeback, and also ridiculously thankful that she was in fact Luce’s friend.

  She was the first to run after Luce, and in a beautiful display of wow Hogwarts really doesn’t care about students’ well-being at all , Hagrid made Malfoy and Potter follow close behind.

  It was a fun half an hour.

  The path became almost impossible to follow because the trees were so thick, and the blood seemed to be getting thicker. There were splashes on the roots of a tree, as though the poor creature had been thrashing around in pain close by. A sure sign that they should be running in the opposite direction as opposed to marching straight towards it, but hey, Hogwarts justice system.

  Claire could see a clearing ahead, through the tangled branches of an ancient oak.

  “Look — ” Potter murmured like everyone else was blind and not him, the glasses-wearing nerd. He held out his arm to stop Malfoy.

  Something bright white was gleaming on the ground. They inched closer.

  It was the unicorn all right, and it was dead. Claire had never seen anything so beautiful and sad. Its long, slender legs were stuck out at odd angles where it had fallen and its mane was spread pearly-white on the dark leaves.

  Potter had taken one step toward it when a slithering sound made him freeze where he stood. A bush on the edge of the clearing quivered … 

  Out of the shadows, the same hooded figure Claire had seen before came crawling across the ground like some stalking beast. It reached the unicorn, lowered its head over the wound in the animal’s side, and began to drink its blood.

  Malfoy, proving Luce’s theory incorrect — it was a twelve year old boy thing, not just limited to Gryffindors — screamed loud enough to shatter glass and bolted. Fang sprinted after him.

  It wasn’t a conscious decision really. Claire just saw the monster drinking the unicorn blood, heard the screams, and ran for her fucking life.

  It wasn’t until she had been running for a good ten minutes maybe — time was all weird when you were high off oh my god I’m going to die — that Claire realised that Luce was in fact, not with them.

  She screeched to a halt.

  “What are you — ” Malfoy stopped too, pale cheeks flushed, eyes blown wide with terror. “Are we safe?”

  “Luce — ” Claire gasped, looking around frantically like her friend might randomly decide to pop out of the trees and scare Malfoy like he’d scared Neville. “She’s — she’s back there, she didn’t run — I thought she was following, God — ”

  “Well, she’s dead.” Malfoy snapped. “Her and Potter, and good riddance to the both of them.”

  “How could you — ” Claire didn’t have time to argue with him. “I’m going back.”

  “Are you crazy ?!” Malfoy yelped. “That thing drank unicorn blood!”

  “And I can’t leave Luce behind. I’m not asking you to join me.”

  “You’re just going to leave me here?” Malfoy demanded. “Alone?!”

  Claire wanted to punch him. “Come with me back there or stay here and wait for the others to find you before that monster does. Those are your options, now hurry up because Luce — ”

  “Don’t leave me here alone!” Malfoy flared up.

  “THEN FUCKING COME WITH ME, I DON’T GIVE A SHIT!” Claire wasn’t going to waste anymore time with him. Making a conscious effort to ignore all survival instincts screaming at her to run back to the safety of the castle and deal with the consequences later, and cursing Luce to the wind, she sprinted in the rough direction she had come from, taking the occasional moment to blast a red sparked trail in the sky, calling the others for help that she couldn’t afford to wait for.

  She felt stupid to be so terrified for Luce’s safety when she saw her and Potter, right as rain, riding a new centaur’s back as he transported them out of danger.

  “Luce!” Claire almost cried in relief.

  Luce peered down at her, completely unharmed and relatively unbothered. “I can’t believe you just left me like that, you pussy .”

  “I thought you were right behind me! Why didn’t you run away like a normal fucking person?”

  “I don’t — ” Luce started hotly before very obviously struggling to find a proper end of that sentence and giving up. “Have a good response.”

  “No! Because it was stupid!”

  Potter, who must have grown tired being ignored, piped up. 

  “Can we go back to the part where Luce punched Voldemort in the face ?!”

Chapter Text

  Luce thought it was a joke at first. Some of the older Slytherins playing a prank on the first years who lost them so many points. It wouldn’t have surprised her. She had gotten used to the Slytherin idea of ‘pranks’ — blood on her bed and people telling her to leave her mud outside the common room. 

  Dressing in black and chasing down an injured unicorn was a little extreme, but she wouldn’t have been too surprised. It was an eerie forest with limited supervision. If she was mad at a bunch of kids, she’d do the same thing.

  She couldn’t see the prankster very well; they had lurked into her view for a few seconds before her line of sight was cut out via Potter, Malfoy and Fang. But she felt like they were still there and just … watching.

  Maybe it was an advanced spell Claire hadn’t told her about. 

  Potter and Malfoy stopped walking ahead. Fang must have seen something as well, as he had started growling. Assuming the boys had seen the prankster, Luce went to grab Claire’s arm to warn her not to approach any closer. Claire was already mad about how many points Luce had ‘supposedly’ made her lose, so getting her out of the way from the prank should surely win some friend points back. 

  “AAAAAAAAAAARGH”

  Malfoy had a very shrill scream, Luce noted bemusedly. She dropped Claire’s arm in favour of walking forward to get a better view. Claire would follow her, she was sure.

  Luce found Malfoy’s scream less funny when he ran so fast past her you’d have thought he’d seen a horrifying, horrendous, horrid creature snarling at him.

  To be fair, that was how Luce had described Pansy Parkinson to her parents in a few letters.

  Fang seemed to have split in the opposite direction to Malfoy, probably sensing he was better off on his own.

 Having turned around to comment on the unfolding situation to what Luce assumed was her loyal, kind, not at all ditching someone in the woods friend. She was surprised to see a fading trail of dust. What happened to all that house loyalty that Slytherin was supposedly meant to be about?

  Groaning loudly, Luce shook her frustration off as she quickly sped to clear the brush and see if she could spy where Potter had rushed off to. Even if she didn’t particularly like the bastard, he was still like a limp, starved noodle of a cat. And unlike Claire and Malfoy, her parents taught her better than to leave people alone in the woods.

  Finally breaking into the clearing, Luce saw the clocked prankster approaching a prone Potter. They seemed to float as they approached, like they were savoring the experience of hunting . Luce slowly creaked closer — they hadn’t seen her yet as she was hidden behind the tree Potter had fallen near.

  The excitement that she could scare the prankster back and become the legend that saved Potter from a prank he fainted over rushed over her. She’d be worshipped . She savored the thought as she stepped a little closer to the left to break away from the tree’s shadow. She was risking being seen, but she needed a hint of visibility to jump out in front of the prankster.

  It didn’t have a face.

  Whatever the thing was, it wasn’t human. 

  Maybe Claire and Malfoy had the right idea in running. 

  It seemed to be caressing Potter, the blood from the unicorn having mixed with the things’s saliva as a single strand dangled in front of Potter’s scar. It breathed like a dog pants when starved for days, contemplating if its owner was really too big to eat .

  Luce felt as if the forest itself stalled its breath upon this moment, they had been hunted, and Potter was just the first caught.

  Her mind flashed to the potential next events — she could run, but she wasn’t faster than a unicorn. It would catch Claire next, then Malfoy. She imagined Claire’s body twisted like the unicorn’s neck, staring at the sky as red sparks faded. Nobody could outrun death.

  But you could run towards it.

  Thinking quickly, Luce darted in front of the tree, making eye contact with soulless dots. Her dad had said that if it ever came down to it, life or death, to die fighting. To claw at eyes or bite at flesh because you might just injure the being enough to buy someone else another day. 

  He had told her that because she had mentioned being scared of dying, when she was five. He had held her hand and said to be scared of the inevitable was foolish, and quoted to her some military jaragen that boiled down to “die so others can live”.

  She hoped that memory played in her seven minutes.

  Slipping her wand into her hand she cast vermillious into the creature’s face, causing it to snarl while falling back a few precious steps. The charm made it look even more monstrous, red light causing the blood on its face to glow for a second.

  Slipping into the now unoccupied space in front of Potter, Luce took a second to breathe. Kicking the boy behind her, she stood like a tree.

  “Tell Claire to push Parkinson down the stairs in my memory.”

  When Harry predictably didn’t answer, she swung her arm and punched the creature square in its bloody face. 

 * * *

  It turned out Luce’s seven minutes was Harry Potter screaming  ‘Luce punched Voldemort’ while being glared at by a scratched up Claire.

  Because Claire was not happy. About any of it. After much yelling and “oh my god, we’re gonna die, I can’t believe you punched the Dark Lord ”s, she evidently realised what punching in fact, was. Which meant finding out that Luce resorted to “despicable, undesirable and dirty muggle tactics to fight the Dark Lord like an uneducated squib”. Which meant Luce was dragged to the library for the rest of the year to be “educated”.

  Luce did not want to be educated. Claire didn’t give her a choice. Luce got to sit on a ugly ass antique chair as she was quizzed on spells she was fairly sure wasn’t legal.

  For example, Coque sanguine , a spell Claire told Luce to only use when “being threatened with death”, which supposedly boils a person alive.

  This information was supposed to ‘protect’ Luce, or make sure she could protect herself if she ran into the Dark Lord or his Death Eaters again.

  Luce felt like it was far more likely she’d have to protect herself from Claire.

  “Claire, if I promise to just run next time will you stop this torture?” Luce begged, after the third consecutive day in the library.

  It was mid exam week. Luce did not want to be doing all this extra, definitely-illegal studying. She was already dying trying to cram for each subject. Flashcards couldn’t get her out of this.

  Luce did not get any pity. Even when she tried to use exam week against Claire, who was of the opinion that she would spontaneously combust if she didn’t get perfect grades. They were still there, all the time, in the library, studying spells that would never grace a Hogwarts exam paper, amid the seventh years that definitely wanted Luce dead.

  Claire was made very aware of the fact it was exam week. Claire still did not let Luce leave. Claire was just more of a bitch than normal and made her do more work. Claire was a slave driver and there was no freedom or revolution for Luce ever.

  “No.” Claire snapped, flipping through her notes of spells labelled keeping Luce alive . “Read the passage, you punching priss.”

  Claire didn’t find what she was looking for, and the way she slammed the notes back down on the table said she wanted the whole library to know about it. Even her looking around the library was aggressive. And the look on her face when she still didn’t find what she was looking for. And her sigh. And her glare at Luce.

  Luce was not safe here.

  “I need to grab a book on potent undetectable poisons.” Claire’s glare said that I will use on you as a test dummy if you do not do what I want you to . “Will you survive on your own unsupervised for that long?”

  She stressed the word survive a little too much for Luce’s taste. Like she would be killed in a bloody library of all things. Unless it was of boredom. Or Claire.

  Luce made sure to clarify ‘okay’ in a voice that was not sarcastic and was persuasive enough for Claire to leave her alone and maybe not kill her.

  Luce turned back to her passage of Spells for Beginners that Claire had shoved in front of her. Mumbling to herself, Luce went through some of the passage of the text.
  “ Imperio is the most important spell for beginners entering the dark arts as it is the most untraceable in the event of capture, in the event of a fight. Avada — ”

  “Pssst, Luce.” 

  “ Kedavra is the killing curse, however it releases an obvious green light, and is painless on the victim.” 

  “Oi Australian, Aussie Aussie Aussie and all, turn over here you prat.”

  “In the case of annoying Gryffindors, a swift punch to the nose should solve all your problems.”

  Hermione pushed Luce’s book to the side and placed herself directly in front of Luce, who promptly pretended to read air.

  “I am terribly sorry to bother you and your … reading, but we have some invigorating news to share.” Granger was hard to understand at the best of times. When Luce was actively trying to ignore her, and Granger was obviously very excited, she was damn near incomprehensible.

  “Terrific.” Luce responded dryly. 

  Potter seemed to be staring at her with faint respect in his eyes as he painted her a tale of Severus Snape and his wishes to rob a vicious three-headed dog of an immortality stone that lets you dodge death. Their description of the dog made Luce immediately begin daydreaming of her own three-headed dog she really needed to see again. Her darling, sweet-heart Missy who would never hurt anyone.

  Hey, if she compared Claire’s thinking pattern towards Missy being similar to that of a Weasley’s and Granger and Potter’s towards their vicious monster of a dog, Claire might learn to see Missy for the darling sweetheart she was!

  Where was Claire? She should come back and save Luce the trouble of fighting off three Gryffindors and getting herself into masses of trouble that would just make her house haze her worse.

  She spotted Claire just as Ron dramatically finished alphabet vomit with the plea of “So will you help us?”

  “I’d love to.” Luce’s sarcasm flew straight over the Gryffindor’s heads. They started beaming. Luce looked away dismissively to try and force Claire to make eye contact with her.

  “Buuuut Claire and my entire house would kill me. So as much as I’m … so invested … It’s a no.”

  Why would Claire not turn around and look at her? She was under very real threat of the impending doom of having Gryffindors suddenly interested in her life.

  “Please?” Harry pouted. “We need your help. And you could help prove that not all Slytherins are evil!”

  “Evil.” Luce repeated, giving up on Claire to glare at Harry ‘brushes his hair with a brick’ Potter. “I saved your life from Voldemort. I’m done. My house is hazing me as it is, I am not losing bed privileges because you want to play hero again .”

  Luce had raised her voice enough to get Claire’s attention.

  “Excuse me.” Some fancy pureblood snobbishness couldn’t be tampered so easily, but at least Claire’s face of disgust made up for it.

  “We didn’t invite you.” Weasley said boldly for someone who was also in fact, not invited anyway near Luce.

  Claire raised an eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware I needed an invitation to my own table .” She slammed her books down, effectively shooing Granger away a couple of steps, before turning to Weasley with a pondering, almost fake-pitying expression on her face. “Oh, sorry, do you have to do that at home? Have to get special permission to eat because there’s so many of you and not enough food to go around? That’s so insensitive of me.”

  Ron went as red as his hair, but Claire was still speaking.

  “Almost as insensitive of you guys trying to manipulate my friend whose life you have effectively ruined into being your scapegoat for the trouble you will inevitably get yourselves into.”

  Harry scoffed. “Oh, so you care about her now? You’re friends now.”

  Luce didn’t know what on earth he was on about. She turned to look at Claire, ready to ask if he’d been hit with some spell Claire was going to make Luce learn next, only to find Claire almost as scarlet as Weasley with rage.

  “Oh, so you want to play hero again?” Claire snapped. “You want to get yourself into masses of trouble that you’ll make everyone’s problem because you’re so self-centred you can’t see how your actions have an impact on others. Luce has said that she wants nothing to do with the silver-tongued lies you’re trying to feed her, and instead of accepting her clear ‘no’, you’ve taken it upon yourself to try and manipulate her to join her cause. How cowardly can you be? Wait, I forgot, I’m talking to the boy who fainted and had to get rescued by a lowly ‘snake’ when faced with his own nemesis.”

  “Oooh, burn!” Luce was enjoying Claire turning her bitchiness on others sooo much. Especially when it took the Gryffindor trio a good couple of minutes to find a proper response to Claire’s statement.

  “You ran away.” Was all Potter could come up with. “At least I stayed.”

  Claire scoffed. “Stayed for what? To collapse immediately and become a nuisance who needed saving? Some Boy Who Lived saviour of the Wizarding World you are. You needed some unnamed Australian witch to save your ass. I was halfway to the castle, saving both myself, and anyone else the trouble of needing to rescue me. One of us is a pathetic little damsel in distress who needs a brave knight in shining armour to come save them, and it’s not me.”

  Luce ‘ooohed’ again into the silence that followed.

  This time when Claire pointed at the door and told the trio to leave, they did, looking remarkably like kicked puppies with their tails tucked between their legs as they did so.

  Three little puppies …

  “Can we visit Missy?”

  Claire turned her glare on Luce.

* * *

  At first it seemed like Claire had really saved Luce’s ass back there, scaring away the Gryffindors. Three days later, they were in the Hospital Wing from their misadventure, there were rumours everywhere about what could have possibly happened, and Harry was thought to be dead.

  If Claire wasn’t so oblivious, she might have been able to save Luce from being hazed worse than ever the last day of term. Everyone knew Ravenclaw had won the House Cup, and apparently it was Luce’s fault for ruining Slytherin’s seven year winning streak.

  So naturally she couldn’t open her dorm door in the morning, because only a pureblood could do that. Seriously. She was inside already. She wanted to leave. Why could she not leave? Why did Pugface have no brain cells?

  Luce just pretended to have her hands full and let Claire open the door, where she was promptly hit with some kind of hex that she didn’t know the name of but hurt. Great.

  And then Claire decided she had to go talk to Pugface and Greengrass about an exam question over breakfast, so Luce was left by herself. She didn’t trust her dormmates not to spike her drink with one of those potent undetectable poisons from Claire’s book that she had left lying around. It was safer — lonelier, but safer — to eat her breakfast and ignore how the nearest student to her was at least four seats down.

  Her Hufflepuff friends took pity on her and invited her to sit with them. Luce had to steer the topic of conversation to recent Quidditch scores when the Hufflepuffs started shittalking all of Luce’s dormmates. She was all for the shittalking of Greengrass and Pugface, and Claire needed to stop being so fucking oblivious to Luce’s situation here, but she wasn’t a pretentious little conceited bitch. So much. Anymore.

  Luce’s next concern was getting to her next class without being murdered. Claire had left the Hall at some point. The Hufflepuffs had a class outside with the Gryffindors. Luce was now completely at the mercy of her housemates who wanted her dead.

  She did the super smart thing of finding a Ravenclaw she’d seen a couple of times in her class to latch onto and yap her ear off, guaranteeing her mostly unharmed entrance to her next class. Jessica Yapp didn’t seem to appreciate Luce’s puns on ‘yapping’ very much, but she was definitely yapping with her about the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and seemed happy to do it. This was a pureblood who knew what she was doing. Muggle books were good too.

  She got to sit with Claire at the actual end-of-term feast. It didn’t stop the rest of her housemates trying to murder her with their eyes, but hey, she’d looked Voldemort in the face and punched him. She’d seen worse.

  Although Pugface was uglier than Voldemort. Hmmm.

  Potter showed up late like the main character he strove to be. Luce didn’t really care about that, though. Yay he was alive, she wouldn’t be for much longer if she didn’t get food! It was boring bland British food, but it was still food.

  None of Dumbledore’s announcements were important anyway. Yay, Ravenclaw won the housecup, wooo, everyone fucking saw that coming, woooo, Slytherin had almost killed Luce over it for a long time now yaaaay.

  Then, mid-celebration, after he had literally said ‘Ravenclaw wins with four hundred and seventy-two points’, when Luce had just been hazed for months, and Ravenclaw was celebrating their long awaited win, Dumbledore shut everyone up with “However recent events must be taken into account.”

  Ronald Weasley got fifty points for playing chess.

  Hermione Granger got fifty points for logic that couldn’t get her top of their year in classes (thank you Jessica).

  Harry Potter got sixty points for courage he didn’t show in the forest.

  Neville Longbottom got ten points (wow, what a difference) for standing up to his friends.

  No one except the Gryffindors looked pleased at this sudden turn of events. Not that you could hear the hisses of three houses simultaneously turning to the person next to them to ask if Dumbledore was serious over the explosion of cheering from the red table.

  Luce stuck her hand up and waited.

  It took a good ten minutes for the Gryffindors to shut up enough for Dumbledore to speak again (not that he seemed keen to dampen the celebration). In that ten minutes, the blue and bronze decorations had turned to red and gold, and a towering lion leered down at everyone. In that ten minutes, every single other person had turned to stare at Luce, and Claire had practically made up an essay on the spot telling Luce why it wasn’t worth pursuing and she shouldn’t get herself more negative attention than she already had.

  But at the end of that ten minutes, Dumbledore finally started frowning at Luce, and quietened the hall.

  “Miss … uh …” Great start, Dumbledore, really fantastic.

  “Luce Hamza.”

  Claire put her head in her hands.

  “Miss Hamza.” Dumbledore spread his arm out welcomingly, while looking almost cheerfully perplexed. “Is something the matter?”

  “Yes, actually, I’m just a little confused.”

  “Confused?”

  “Yes. I was hoping you could explain the points system to me? I don’t quite understand how it works.”

  Luce ignored how people started turning to the person next to them to yet again question the ‘idiocracy of today’s events’. Thanks Jessica. Really thought we were mates there for a second.

  “It’s blatant favouritism to the Gryffindors, please shut up.” Claire hissed in a low voice, muffled for her entire face still being concealed by her arms in embarrassment.

  Dumbledore looked taken aback. “Well, Miss Hamza, I’m sure your housemates could answer your questions — ”

  “No, see that’s the thing. Because for this whole year, points have been awarded for good behaviour or academic excellence. But this seems to be for mundane things at best, or breaking the rules . I mean, maybe I’m just a little confused, used to the Australian way of doing things. It’s awarded strictly for good behaviour there, and only someone who is not in the house in question can award points to it, to avoid unnecessary points being awarded, you know. And only a certain number of points can be awarded at any given time.”

  The whispers got more insistent. Luce heard people insulting her heritage, which was stupid because she was making some good points here. Not actual house points, but intelligent comments .

  “I mean, if we’re giving out points for mundane things like winning a game of chess, I beat Claire in Exploding Snap yesterday. Does that count? Fifty points to Slytherin?”

  “I think you’re missing the point,” Dumbledore tried.

  “Oh, well, I’m also still breathing? You know, despite my entire house’s best attempts, I am in fact, still alive, having survived being hazed all year for being a half-blood. Does that count? Or, I passed my exams. I tidied my dorm room. Do I get points for that?”

  Slytherin house wasn’t very pleased about being called out on their bullshit actions in front of everyone. Luce wasn’t very pleased about having to dodge hexes and curses twenty-four/seven. It was fair.

  Dumbledore was looking progressively more awkward and worried. It was almost as if he expected it to be fine if he just snatched the House Cup from Ravenclaw at the last possible second to hand it to Gryffindor. How weird.

  “I see I have to clarify.” Dumbledore raised his hands out pacifyingly. “These young Gryffindors showed true courage and heroic actions in the face of danger — ”

  “Right, danger.” Luce interrupted him. “Life-threatening danger that three eleven-twelve year olds were put in unnecessarily. But we shouldn’t be surprised, right? I mean, you’ve done it before. That detention that you put me in — ”

  Dumbledore could see a potential lawsuit — that Luce was honestly surprised Claire and Malfoy hadn’t set forward — coming on. “I think that is enough.”

  Luce did not think that was enough.

  “That detention that you put me in. Me and five other first year students in. In the Forbidden Forest at midnight, alone with minimal to no adult supervision at any given time, hunting down a monster that had been killing unicorns. Hardly a fair task for, I repeat, a group of eleven and twelve year olds with little to no outstanding magical talent. You have received multiple howlers about this matter from my mother, I know you know exactly what incident I’m talking about.”

  Multiple teachers were looking either surprised, or severely uncomfortable. As they should.

  “My life and the lives of my peers were put into danger that night, because of your irresponsibility to notice a teacher consorting with Voldemort.”

  Luce underestimated the outcry that would erupt once she said Voldemort’s name, but hey, it helped get her point across.

  “Will you stop?” Claire hissed. “This is going to do nothing to help your cause with our house!”

  Luce shrugged. “It’s an honest question from an uneducated mudblood’s child like myself. They should expect such foolishness from me.”

  Claire looked like she was mentally writing Luce’s obituary.

  “At least stop saying the Dark Lord’s name.” She begged.

  Luce patted her friend’s head. “I’ll think about it.”

  She probably wouldn’t, but that was the best Claire was gonna get.

  At the next moderate quiet, Luce immediately started speaking again.

  “But I mean, speaking of that teacher consorting with Vol — fine, with the Dark Lord, please stop kicking me under the table” Luce looked pointedly at Claire who buried her face in her arms again and kicked Luce under the table. Unfair.

  “Speaking of that, I had to fight the Dark Lord that night, when your little heroic saviour over there was writhing on the ground complaining about his headache. And where was your clearly non-existent safety precautions then? The centaurs had to save us from that. You claim this is the safest and greatest school of witchcraft and wizardry in the world but personally, I am not seeing that.”

  This time there was an even bigger outcry from the rest of the hall, and Luce took the time to sit back in her seat, cross her arms, and glare directly at Dumbledore, who had to yell “Silence” and “Enough” multiple times for the students to calm down.

  “I can see your point, young Miss Hamza. Some certain things, ah, slip an old man’s mind.” He tried for a twinkly-eyed everything is fine, how funny is this situation that no one fell for.

  “Things like, oh I don’t know, safety precautions ?” Luce immediately fired back. “The lives of many students?”

  Dumbledore elected to ignore this. “In light of those events, Miss Luce Hamza, I award fifty points to Slytherin house.”

  This did jackshit to dampen Gryffindor’s win and everyone knew it.

  “What about Claire and Malfoy?” Luce demanded.

  Claire very obviously tried to disappear under the table and have the ground swallow her whole. Malfoy’s pale ferret face had never been redder.

  “What about Miss Belstring and Mr. Malfoy?” Dumbledore’s good tone was strained.

  “They were there at the forest too, put into direct danger at your hands. I think they deserve compensation points.”

  “Well — ”

  “Because you took away roughly one hundred and twenty points from the three of us for ‘sneaking around after hours’ when there was a legitimate illegal dragon that was bred by one of the teachers at this school, and handed off to dragon smugglers with the help of previously mentioned students. I bet you and your great all-powerful knowledge didn’t see that coming, but that was a thing that happened. So no, I don’t want less than half of the points I was robbed off and almost slaughtered by my house for as a result. I want all of those points back, as your pathetic ‘apology’ for the misunderstanding. Then I want the sixty you awarded Potter for his ‘bravery fighting the Dark Lord’, because I did that too, when he was writhing on the ground. And then , you can give me and my friends points for silly things like me beating Claire in Exploding Snap after she slaughtered me in Gobstones. I mean, fifty points for the ‘world’s best game of chess’?” Luce pointed at Ron and scoffed.

  The entire hall dissolved into chaos, and this time, Dumbledore couldn’t calm them down no matter how hard he tried.

  Jessica Yapp raised her hand in a similar fashion to Luce. except, unlike Luce, she received much support from her house over it.

  Whoops.

  “I was top of my year in the exams just gone.” Jessica sent a snide little side eye in Granger’s direction. The meddling trio of Gryffindors and all the rest of the arrogant lions, for the record, were looking spectacularly pissed off by the sudden turn of events. “Do I get fifty points for that? I mean, cool logic in stressful situations, and all.”

  Jessica was not the only one to start firing out scenarios that were felt to deserve an outrageous number of points. With the prefects and house leaders yelling out, the four great hourglasses in the corner kept filling and emptying, the jewels flying around with such fever that the glass strained.

  In efforts to stop civil war breaking out, Dumbledore eventually reinstituted Ravenclaw as the House Cup winner.

  “Is that fair enough for you, Miss Hamza?” He demanded.

  Luce smiled. “Perfectly, sir.”

  She sat back down and busied herself with eating her dinner to disguise the way her hands had started to shake.

  The Gryffindors looked likely to murder Luce. The Slytherins probably wanted the same. She’d robbed Gryffindor of the House Cup, but Slytherin still didn’t get it. Her bad, of course.

  The Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs seemed to be eternally in her favour, however. She had people from the next table over reach over to high-five her and shake her hand and congratulate her bravery.

  After the hundredth person (okay, maybe Luce was being dramatic, but there was a lot of fucking people approaching her!) To congratulate and thank her like she had personally won her house the Cup (ahahaha nooo, Slytherin wished ), Claire seemed to warm up to Luce’s latest feat of idiocracy.

  It was still stupid, Claire made sure to tell Luce a dozen times, but at least she had shown those Gryffindors. That should win her points back with her house. And hey, she had survived her first year. There would be fresh meat to pick on next year, surely, so Luce would likely be let off the hook.

  Luce wasn’t so sure. Or at all sure. But in twenty-four hours, she’d be at home and probably sleeping and she wouldn’t have to worry about Hogwarts for another two months.

  Thank fuck.

Chapter Text

28 June, 1992

  To my dear friend, Luce Hamza,

  I hope your holidays are going well thus far. I understand only a day has passed since we last spoke at the time I am writing this letter, but I assume there will be a difference by the time it arrives at your house.

  I am well, as I hope you are, and your family. I do hope you haven’t blown anything up yet, and my severe condolences to your parents if this is the case.

  Nothing nearly so drastic has happened to me as of yet. Antoine (my youngest brother) was delighted to hear of select stories of your misdoings. I fear my stories of your mishaps have influenced him terribly. He seems awfully fond of you, even despite all our parents’ teachings of purity that he tells me was increased after the iceblood incident (he wanted this story specifically. Don’t worry, though, I did not tell him everything or anything really that could incriminate you, even if the word of an eight year old boy is hardly one of importance).

  Maël’s graduation from Durmstrang was obviously met with some glamour — you remember how I had to go home over the Easter holidays for his seventeenth and described how large the ball was in his honour? My parents plan to throw another grandiose ball for the celebration of his graduation.

  Oh, and it’s not all, but you’ll laugh at me so — Mother and Father have decided to throw more balls to find suitable matches for Elodie and Juliette. I know it’s the time this ought to happen, but it’s bothersome how many gatherings there will be in my near future, and how often I am expected to be all dolled up and quiet and polite and dance until my feet ache with boys I hardly know and talk with girls like Pansy who despise me privately and only wish to gossip about how distasteful they find other girls’ dresses.

  You would make the whole thing much more entertaining, but I received the longest lecture earlier today about the company I hang out with and how much trouble I got myself into at school. I know you would never be allowed over. I’d be cursed for asking. They are awfully mad at me over this whole situation. I’m sure they will forget about it shortly, granted the rest of our community does. Not for a while then, I realise, but hopefully soon enough.

  Anyway, I am sure you would be most displeased to be dragged back to Britain so frequently for balls in which I admit you would be most looked down on.

  We shall just have to wait to go back to Hogwarts in two months to see each other again, then. It seems an awful long time, two months. You must write back soon.

  Sincerely,

  Claire Belstring

To The Highly Esteemed Claire Belstring or whatever your formal title is

Sup bitch

Why did you write so formally? Have some respect for the illiteracy of us commoners. I couldn’t understand half of that letter with all your spiced up sentences. I had to get my dad to translate your fancy pureblood speak into the english language again.

I am SO OFFENDED that you think I could have blown something up! I only NEARLY burnt the kitchen down when I forgot about the thing on the stove. Not my fault.

You’re right though, you are SUCH A LOSER for having to go to all those balls. And having to hang out with Pugface? I’d rather gouge my own eyes out. I’ll Do you one better, gouge HER eyes out. I’d do it for you, but apparently I’m a bad influence on your pure ass. Which means I don’t have to go to any balls and I can sit here with my loving parents who don’t make me do shit I don’t want to do or get married off at fifteen.

British people, for shame.

I get to hang out with people I actually like, again unlike you. Because I have friends outside of Hogwarts, and bloodties. Send me a letter when you’re going to Diagon, I’ll spare some time out of my busy schedule to see you

Enjoy your holidays, 

From downunder, Luce

P.S no New Zealand and Australia are not the same country before you ask.

  Diagon Alley was more crammed with people than it had been last year and Claire hadn’t thought that possible.

  Of course, it made it easier for her to slip past Libly’s careful watch to go find her ‘dangerous half-breed’ friend she had been forbidden from seeing. It had been a long two months. She was bored out of her mind and wanted to see Luce again, even if it was for a few hours.

  Luce would also murder her if she wasn’t there on their agreed upon date and time and place. And while she found Luce slightly less terrifying than her parents, who would also torture and murder her if she broke any of their rules, she only had to evade her parents for a couple more short weeks. Her house was massive, and if she was smart enough about it, they didn’t need to know. Luce, who would be rooming with her in a few short weeks for a long school year, would be much harder to avoid.

  Libly, bless her house-elf soul, was very easy to slip away from. Oh no, the crowds … the separation … the confusion … aaaand Claire couldn’t see her house elf, time to bolt in the opposite direction, weaving through as many people as humanly possible to put as much in between her and her house-elf as she could. She’d never tell Luce, ever , but it seemed like she was putting all that running practice last year to good use.

  Ugh, running . If she had to do that much running around this year too, she was going to kill herself. Or one better, kill Luce.

  Luce had the audacity to overdramatically check her watch when she saw Claire run up.

  “I thought you fancy purebloods would always be on time.” Luce said by way of greeting. “You’re half an hour late.”

  “I said approximately ten o’clock, not exactly .” Claire huffed, collapsing into the nearby chair and immediately burying her face in her arms.

  “ Approximately doesn’t mean with the leeway of thirty minutes .”

  “Ooh, Luce Hamza’s learnt a big word.” Claire’s voice was muffled, but her scorn was still clear. “How much studying did you have to do to learn that, huh? All those little squares of parchment.”

  “You even look disgraceful.” Luce really just wanted to bully Claire today. “Are we sure you’re not also a dirty half-blood like me?”

  Claire had risked being brutally beaten by her parents for this abuse.

  She mumbled curses under her breath.

  “Hit a nerve there, huh?” Luce gave a big toothy grin.

  “Stop bullying your friend, Luce.” It was the new voice that made Claire hastily look up, and then stand up. Luce had said her parents were going to be there, but it had completely slipped Claire’s mind.

  “I am so sorry, ma’am, I didn’t see you there.” Claire nervously brushed her hands against her skirt. “Um, I’m Claire.”

  “Ooh, there was no fancy last name there.” Luce jeered. The bastard looked like she was enjoying every minute of Claire’s discomfort immensely. “Is it because my mother’s a muggleborn?”

  “No.” Claire snapped at Luce, then repeated in a much softer and milder tone accompanied by an anxious smile towards Luce’s mother. “No. I — I don’t — I mean I wouldn’t — that wasn’t — ”

  Luce laughed and grabbed Claire’s arm, dragging her up and out of her chair. “Bye Mum!”

  Luce’s mother looked almost amused. “Be good.”

  “We will!” Luce promised like an absolute liar. There was no way Luce Hamza was even remotely capable of being good by any definition.

  “Are you determined to make your mother hate me?” Claire hissed as Luce dragged her away.

  “No, you are determined to hold onto your racist beliefs which directly impact both me and my mother.” Luce retorted, grinning. It felt challenging rather than happy though, like this was all a grand plot of hers to make Claire see the error of her ways.

  Claire looked back in the direction they had left Luce’s mother behind.

  “So if my mother hates you because of that,” Luce shrugged, “that is hardly a fault of mine.”

  Claire turned back and made a face. “I’m not even that racist. You’re over exaggerating things.”

  “You’re hiding from your house elf because you can’t be seen with a lowly half-blood like me.”

  “I’m hiding from my house elf because I can’t be seen with a dangerously uncouth witch such as yourself. My — and by extension, my family’s — reputation was left in tatters the moment I met you. My parents do not forget.”

  Luce arched an eyebrow. “And you do?”

  Claire frowned. “Do what?”

  “Forget I ‘ruined your reputation’. You never let me hear the end of it.”

  This had the potential to be one of the rare moments where Luce Hamza had something so profound to say that it left Claire mentally curled in a ball staring at the wall and questioning her existence, if Luce had not then spotted Florean Fortesque’s shop, yelled “Ice cream!” loudly and excitedly, and dragged Claire inside.

* * *

  Miraculously, and by no help of Luce’s, they mostly successfully did all of their required shopping. Luce wanted to stop and examined every shiny thing that caught her eye. Claire wanted to complete their shopping without lingering too long in any one particular place for Libly to hunt her down and find her with compromising company.

  They were not the same.

  Luce did not drop any more deep philosophical comments for the remainder of their time together, however, nor bring up either of their families or political views again, which helped soothe Claire’s already frayed nerves a miniscule amount. Unfortunately, this tiny little miniscule amount of soothing did not stand a chance against the potential fraying of nerves that Flourish and Blotts presented, mid Lockhart celebrity book signing.

  It was overflowing with people, mostly middle-aged women clamouring with embarrassed looking hordes of children, and squealing about meeting the famed celebrity Gilderoy Lockhart.

  Claire was a lot less impressed.

  Gilderoy Lockhart was, in her very wise opinion, a complete and utter idiot. She’d met him before, briefly, and he had spent the whole conversation giving beauty tips she didn’t need, telling her she’d look a lot prettier if she smiled even though she could never achieve the Most-Charming Smile Award Witch Weekly loved to bestow on him, and bragging about his own achievements. Claire had been nine. Nine was a very young age to come to terms with the fact that humanity could, in fact, exist without intelligent thought, and that such people held such large spheres of influence and were held to such high regard.

  It had given her a misguided understanding of pretty privilege and she had genuinely full-heartedly believed for a few weeks that since she was obviously smarter than Lockhart was, she could very easily put herself in a position of power and bring glory to her family name.

  Nine year old Claire had neglected to factor in her age, gender, and social standings. Mael had had a field day detailing exactly how she was a foolish, stupid little insignificant girl.

  So yeah, twelve year old Claire wasn’t particularly anymore fond of the man.

  It did bring her joy when none other than Harry Potter was very unwillingly pulled from the crowd to pose with the ultimate poser. Lockhart’s book signings would already make the papers. A photo with the famed Harry Potter would make the front page of the Prophet tomorrow.

  “How is that guy important again?” Luce asked none too quietly, pointing at Lockhart.

  Multiple women turned to glare at her; uneducated strangers agreeing with Claire on questioning the half-blood’s intelligence. Claire didn’t particularly like that idea.

  “He’s written almost the entirety of our booklist, on his feats against dark creatures.” Claire watched Potter’s discomfort with a savage sort of pleasure. After the Forbidden Forest incident, in which Potter and his friends had gotten her into trouble, and then Potter and his friends had gotten the easy way out in that detention, anything that brought Potter discomfort brought Claire immense joy.

  Her immense joy was dampened at Lockhart’s declaration to the crowd gathered.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said loudly, waving for quiet. “What an extraordinary moment this is! The perfect moment for me to make a little announcement I’ve been sitting on for some time! When young Harry here stepped into Flourish and Blotts today, he only wanted to buy my autobiography — which I shall be happy to present him now, free of charge — ”

  The crowd burst into rapturous applause. Claire doubted Potter had intended to buy Lockhart’s book, nor needed the donation. Oh the privileges of fame and illusion money was for the rich.

  “He had no idea,” Lockhart continued, shaking Potter so hard Claire saw his glasses slip to the end of his nose, “that he would shortly be getting much, much more than my book, Magical Me. He and his schoolmates will, in fact, be getting the real magical me.”

  Claire barely concealed her “no” of horror.

  “Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I have great pleasure and pride in announcing that this September, I will be taking up the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry!”

  The crowd burst into applause louder than the first, and that greatly resembled the racket of Gryffindor’s five minute win of the House Cup last year.

  Luce looked from Lockhart, to Claire’s stricken expression, back to Lockhart. “So we’re getting another idiot as our Defence professor, huh?”

  Claire nodded. If she opened her mouth, only curses unbefitting a young lady of her standings would fall out.

  Luce groaned. “Didn’t we find out Quirrell was basically Voldemort?”

  No one surrounding the two girls heard Luce’s words, which was just as fucking well.

  “You need to stop saying his name.” Claire hissed, looking around the shop, half expecting someone to burst out from the crowd to descend on them with lectures of the horrors the Dark Lord would perform onto them if they did not show the proper respect to his name.

  “Whoops.” Luce said, not looking in the slightest bit like she cared. “But I’m right, though? Quirrell was Voldemort?”

  Luce was loud. Luce was going to attract unwanted attention. Luce was not going to let this topic go until she got her desired answer, of which Claire could not and would not give her in such a crowded place.

  Claire eyed the shop, desperately scanning for a dark corner far enough away from prying eyes. She’d gotten good at finding those at all the balls she had attended that summer. Dark corners far away from prying eyes and ears were safe spaces.

  “Come on.” Claire grabbed Luce’s arm and dragged her out of the long line of Lockhart-adorers.

  “Don’t you go and try to murder me.” Luce half-complained as she let Claire drag her away to the corner of the shop, hidden from most by towering bookshelves of history books no one really wanted to purchase.

  “I don’t know what Quirrell’s connection to the Dark Lord was exactly, but yes, the general consensus is he had something to do with him. Which is not something you can shout out in a public space, especially not using his name.”

  Luce looked extremely displeased with the lack of information Claire was giving her. “What’s the big deal with not saying his name?”

  “Fear mostly.” Claire looked around the bookshop warily. “Some out of respect.”

  Luce frowned. “Respect? Wasn’t he a genocidal maniac?”

  Claire had to take a full minute to avoid having a panic attack hearing Luce refer — with clear, blatant disrespect — to the Dark Lord as a ‘genocidal maniac’.

  “He was a tactical genius who sought to preserve the purity of wizardkind by eliminating those unworthy.”

  “Killing muggles and muggleborns.” Luce filled in bluntly. “Right? He’d murder my mother and probably me too, if he got the chance.”

  Luce was a pain in Claire’s ass, but the idea of her being murdered by the Dark Lord — a figure it had been drilled into Claire her entire life to respect — made her weirdly angry and upset.

  “He would probably let you live.” Claire said slowly. “Especially with your father’s sphere of influence …” She trailed off when she noticed Potter and the Weasleys and Granger on the other end of the bookshelf. Stupid Gryffindors and their nature for trouble like the Forbidden Forest —

  Claire stopped. The Forbidden Forest.

  “Except for the fact you punched him in the face last term.”

  “That was in self defence and it did jack!” Luce immediately fired up.

  “But you still punched him .” Claire hissed. “Which means he would want you dead …”

  “Big surprise.” Luce said, with none of the fear or reference Claire associated with any mention of the Dark Lord, but especially that of a murder threat . “But he’s gone, right? That’s why Potter’s famous.”

  “Yeah, but the rumours …” Claire stopped.

  Luce narrowed her eyes. “What rumours?”

  “It’s nothing.” Claire watched Draco Malfoy approach Potter and his followers to avoid looking at her friend.

  “What. Rumours.”

  Claire huffed out an irritated breath. “Some of his followers still think he’s out there, gathering his strength. And if the newest rumours are to be believed — which I’m not saying I believe them — ” She feared them, but that was another thing entirely “ — supposedly he got close last term. With Quirrell and that thing with the Philosopher’s Stone the Gryffindors tried to get you into.”

  Luce frowned. “So what does that mean?”

  “Hopefully nothing.” Claire looked around nervously again. Lucius Malfoy and Weasley Sr had joined their children. “Just that it’s a good thing you didn’t join them. The Gryffindors, I mean. And pray the Dark Lord doesn’t know you by name. And stay out of his way. And learn how to defend yourself against the Dark Arts.”

  “Which I’m not going to be able to do with that self-absorbed twat teaching defence.” Luce nodded in Lockhart’s direction.

  Claire shook her head. She decided not to bring up that if the Dark Lord wanted you dead, there wasn’t any defence teacher in the world that could help train you to avoid that. Only two people had survived the Dark Lord. One was Dumbledore, the only wizard the Dark Lord feared. The other was Potter, and how he survived was a complete mystery, and Luce could absolutely not rely on having the same luck.

  If only she could — 

  CRASH.

  Luce knocked a pile of books over, almost shoving Claire through the bookshelf in the process.

  “Get him, Dad!”

  “No, Arthur, no!”

  Luce grabbed Claire’s arm and yanked her out of the way just in time. The bookshelf they were hiding behind clattered to the ground, spilling books everywhere and revealing a tangled mess of blonde and ginger hair, limbs, flying books, cheering children, and stampeding passerbys.

  “Gentlemen, please!”

  “Break it up there, gents, break it up.” Hagrid came out of nowhere, parting through the crowds as if they were butter, to physically pull Mr. Malfoy and Weasel Senior apart.

  “Come on.” Claire urged. Luce was a menace to society and needed to be removed from the bookshop before she started another brawl, or re-initiated the showdown between the Weasel father and Lord Malfoy.

  “Do you think we could work that fight into the report? All publicity, you know, first me, then that young Harry Potter, then this brawl, a clash between classes — ”

Chapter Text

 “I don’t want to sit on a train for nine hours!”

  Claire barely flinched at her friend’s sudden arrival into her otherwise peaceful compartment. It made her almost nostalgic, really — Luce had done the exact same thing last year. Crashed through both the compartment door and all Claire’s plans for greatness.

  “I regret to inform you then,” Claire said dryly, “once again, might I add, that this is the only method of transportation Hogwarts offers.”

  Luce collapsed onto the seats dramatically, only to completely misjudge it, overbalance, and fall on the floor in the middle of the compartment.

  Claire laughed as she pulled her legs out of the way. “Very graceful.”

  “Shut up.” Luce grumbled, but didn’t make an effort to move.

  Claire waited a beat. The train whistle blew and every compartment shook a little as the train started moving. She could hear renewed cries and shouts of families saying their final goodbyes.

  “Do you need help?” Claire eventually asked.

  “I am exactly where I want to be, thank you very much.” Luce retorted. “I have committed to the floor. It is a vibe.”

  Claire elected to let her laughter speak for her.

  Luce wasn’t very pleased at this. Claire didn’t think she could have much to defend herself with, but as always, she had underestimated the sheer unparalleled stubbornness Luce possessed, and how much she could yap on about a topic if she felt so strongly about it.

  The points she made weren’t even good. It started at ‘fuck you, I do what I want’ and escalated somehow to ‘is this another form of racist discrimination, just because I’m a half-blood and my decisions are different from your so called purer blooded opinion doesn’t mean I’m invalid’.

  The racist argument was getting old.

  Claire was quite glad when Luce’s rant, that she was only half-listening to, was interrupted by the passing of the Trolley Witch. She was overjoyed when the Trolley Witch stopped and offered them the sweets she actually possessed this year, not without a stink eye in the girl’s direction. It turned out that Potter and Weasley had not, in fact, accessed the supply of sweets first, and there was enough for the rest of them.

  Not for Luce’s lack of trying as she had immediately sprung up from her seat, in an attempt to buy the entire cart out of spite.

  “But it would be so funny.” Luce whined. “Payback! Revenge. Vengeance. Aren’t those things we value as a house?”

  “We also value blood purity as you are well aware, are you sure you want to buy the whole cart?” Claire really, really loved using people’s own arguments against them. If she had just had to listen to a thirty minute ‘you’re so racist’ rant, Luce could deal with one throwaway comment about the severe consequences of her would-be actions.

  Luce spluttered as she tried to come up with a response up to her usual standard of sarcasm.

  “If it helps, dears, we’ve implemented a new limit on the candy consumption of each individual.” The Trolley Witch added kindly.

  Claire pointed at the witch. “See?”

  Luce scowled. “Fuck you.”

  “Language.” The Trolley witch scolded.

  Luce opened her mouth — presumably to spill forth enough curse words to make Claire’s mother faint.

  Claire reached over and covered her mouth, smiling sweetly at the trolley witch. “We’ll have four Chocolate Frogs, six pumpkin pastries, two cauldron cakes and two iced pumpkin juices, please.”

  The Trolley Witch nodded and began rummaging around in her cart.

  Claire turned back to Luce. “Are you going to behave?”

  Luce bit Claire’s hand, electing a yelp and immediate, hasty withdrawal.

  “You’re disgusting!” Claire shook her hand out. “That hurt!”

  “I think you’re being cruel and dismissive towards my Australian heritage.” Luce decided, completely ignoring Claire aggressively rubbing her hand against her clothes. “It’s part of my language to swear.”

  “ ‘It’s part of my language to swear’ shut up Luce, we all know you’re making that up.” Claire accepted the sweets with a nod and smile.

  Luce crossed her arms and pouted.

  “Are you going to buy food?” Claire asked.

  Luce squinted at the food Claire had just ordered and paid for. “Are you going to eat that all yourself?”

  “What if I am?”

  “I’d call you a fat fuck.”

  “Language.” The Trolley Witch said again.

  Claire shrugged at Luce. “I shall still have my food. I don’t care what you think of me.”

  “First of all, liar.” Luce smirked when Claire made a face at her. “Second, I will steal your food.”

  She reached for the pile of sweets to prove her point. Claire slapped her hand away, but sighed.

  “Yes, half the food is for you. Apologise to the witch for swearing and I’ll give you a chocolate frog.”

  “You hypocrite.” Luce muttered, but she did offer a mostly-sincere apology to the witch, who accepted it without too much hassle and left.

  Luce immediately held her hand out.

  “You really can’t be nice for the sake of being nice, huh?” Claire marvelled as she handed over a chocolate frog.

  “Yeah I can.” Luce protested. She slammed the frog against the wall the second she released it from its packaging. “It’s just more fun to do when I’m being bribed.”

  Claire pinched the bridge of her nose. “That’s not how being nice works.”

  “A thing that I’m sure you, Miss I-Only-Hang-Out-With-People-Who-Are-Useful-To-My-Cause, completely understands.” Luce bit the chocolate frog’s head off.

  Claire raised an eyebrow. “I hang out with you.”

  “I am exceedingly useful, thank you very much.” Luce said through a mouthful of chocolate. “Your point is invalid.”

  The compartment door opened before Claire could retort, and Draco Malfoy poked his head in.

  “You haven’t seen Potter, have you?” He asked.

  Claire frowned. “No, why?”

  Malfoy huffed and slammed the door shut.

  Claire looked at Luce, completely bewildered. “What was that?”

  Luce shrugged. “You’re asking the wrong person. Ain’t you the one who just spent half your holidays with him at your fancy pureblood ‘gatherings’?”

  Claire rolled her eyes. “ Half my holidays is an exaggeration. I barely saw Malfoy.”

  “Ah yes, he’s too important for you.” Luce nodded mockingly. “I suppose you didn’t see the Weasleys either?”

  The compartment door opened again.

  “Oh good, you’ve seen Harry and Ron then?”

  Granger was not a face Claire wanted to see so soon, and certainly not with that level of judgement.

  “A ‘good morning’ might have softened the blow of your presence.” Claire rubbed her own face.

  Luce snorted. “Brutal.”

  “Having to talk to Granger so early is brutal.” Claire muttered.

  Luce looked over at the mudblood. “What do you want?”

  Granger crossed her arms and huffed. “Well I don’t want to talk to you very much either.”

  “Then leave.” Claire gestured to the wide open door that Granger could very easily walk herself out of.

  “I only wanted to ask if you’d see Harry and Ron, and I heard someone mention seeing the Weasleys.” Granger looked expectantly at Luce, evidently deducing that of the two girls, Luce was less likely to murder her for interrupting the previous tranquility.

  “I don’t remember saying I’d seen the Weasleys.” Luce said.

  “I don’t remember inviting you to be part of our conversation or company.” Claire mumbled. “Ow, what the hell?!”

  Luce smiled innocently, like she hadn’t just kicked Claire’s shin out of nowhere. “We haven’t seen Potter or Weasley, have we, Claire?”

  Claire looked over at Granger, then back at Luce, then at Granger again. No, Claire hadn’t seen Potter, nor Weasley, and her day was all the better for it, though she couldn’t say that aloud without getting her shins bruised further.

  “No, we have not.” Claire carefully articulated each word. “I assume they are on the train like everyone else, but I do not know their exact whereabouts.”

  Luce smiled a condescending good job, you weren’t an asshole! smile. Claire poked her tongue out, then crossed her arms and pouted in her chair.

  “We hope you find them.” Luce said, and kicked Claire’s ankles when Claire continued to pout instead of agreeing.

  “Stop it!” Claire whined.

  “Say you hope Hermione will find her friends.” Luce chastised. 

  “You hope Hermione will find her friends.” Claire parroted back, making a face. “OW! Fine!” She turned to Granger, plastering a sugary sweet expression on her face. “I hope you find your friends.”

  Granger looked at Claire suspiciously. It was almost like she was trying to linger longer, just to piss her off.

  “You haven’t done something to them, have you?”

  “Why on earth would I want to see their ugly ass lion faces if I didn’t need to? OW LUCE!”

  “We haven’t done anything to them,nor have we seen them.” Luce told Granger, who didn’t look convinced.

  She ultimately decided to drop it, though.

  “Well, tell me if you see them.” Granger directed this command at Luce, who nodded and watched Granger finally leave.

  Claire pulled her legs up underneath her. “Maybe her friends realised how annoying she is and decided to finally abandon and avoid her like everyone else.”

  Luce swatted at Claire’s arm. “You really woke up today and chose violence, huh?”

  “I don’t like Granger.” Claire said through gritted teeth. “We didn’t invite her to eavesdrop on our conversation, or into our compartment, and then she starts accusing us of doing something to her precious Gryffindor friends, they’re probably out there causing trouble that we’ll somehow get blamed for because that’s what happened last year and then they’ll get two hundred points each for ‘saving the school’ from trouble they brought here!”

  Luce nodded seriously, then grinned. “So you got yelled at by your parents this morning?”

  Claire gaped at her. “How — how does that remotely link to my parents being mad at me?”

  “You always get more bitchy after an argument with your parents.”

  Claire scowled. “Everything is fine with my parents, thank you very much.”

  Luce nodded, face very infuriatingly know-it-all. Resembling Granger’s as a matter of fact. Stupid mudblood and her know-it-all voice and face, and stupid Luce with her know-it-all attitude and dirtied blood.

  “Ah-huh.” Luce hummed.

  Claire fumed. Luce hummed serenely to herself as she unwrapped her cauldron cake. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Stupid half-blood and her stupid parents and stupid mudblood Granger and her stupid lion friends with their stupid reputation and all of the stupid people tainting Claire’s own stupid reputation and good bloody stupid name.

  “I can feel you glaring.” Luce taunted in a sing-song voice.

  “Go fuck yourself.” Claire scowled and swiped a Chocolate Frog.

* * *

  Potter and Weasley, it turned out, had ditched Granger only to be expelled via flying car.

  Or so the rumours would have everyone think.

  Sure, flying a car to Hogwarts after missing the train seemed very on point and in character for the great Boy-Who-Lived and his ginger-haired sidekick. But being expelled? Forget it. Claire was sure they’d see a hundred more rubies in Gryffindor’s hourglass the next morning. That seemed more the type of thing to happen.

  Malfoy was naturally the very first to hear of these rumours, and of course, wouldn’t shut up about it. To make matters worse, they had a new band of students joining them — first years, all of whom seemed to look up to the great Malfoy heir and were all transfixed, hanging onto his every word.

  Older students looked on in despair, completely on Luce’s side when she started making fun of his table manners — “I thought your fancy pureblood ass would know better than to eat with your mouth full, or does basic human decency not pass through to you guys?”

  Watching the majority of the house actively cheer Luce on shutting Malfoy up was a very new experience, and one that Claire could certainly get used to.

  Something Claire was not looking forward to getting used to, however, was the renewed Missy trips. Which she should have seen coming. But after two months of getting to sleep the whole night through, every night of the week, she had rekindled her previous relationship with her bed. Her bed was comfortable and warm and fabulous and she loved spending the whole night in it.

  Luce waking her up at midnight was not comfortable or fabulous.

  “Go away.” Claire whined, weakly trying to wrestle her pillow back from her asshole friend.

  “I haven’t seen Missy in over two months .” Luce declared, successfully tugging it back. “We are going to see her.”

  Claire reached out for her pillow forlornly. “You said you were really tired and jetlagged from the time differences.”

  “I was.” Luce agreed, making a face of disgust. “So I fell asleep on the train. And now my insomnia’s kicking in.”

  Claire blearily looked at her. “And this is my problem, why?”

  Luce whacked Claire with her pillow. Which Claire should have seen coming. “Because I say so.”

  “I say bed.” Claire reached out for her pillow.

  Luce grabbed her outstretched hand. “I say Missy.” She yanked Claire up and off her bed.

  “I just wanna sleeeeeep.” Claire complained.

  “Adventure.” Luce declared, somehow already at the door and staring back at Claire expectantly.

  Claire pointed at the bed she had just been rudely dragged out of. “Bed.”

  “Missy.” Luce opened the door.

  Claire groaned. “Let me get my shoes first.”

  “And a jumper.” Luce said cheerfully. “It’ll be cold.”

  Claire flipped her off as she rummaged through her trunk. No mudbloods had gone through her belongings this time. Maybe it was because no Potter and Weasley had stolen the entire cart of sweets, prompting an unexpected trip away from guarding her possessions from thieving lowlives.

  “Taking your time there mate.” Luce tutted, tapping her wrist impatiently. “For someone who wants so desperately to go back to bed, she’s only lengthening this whole thing.”

  “Shut uuuuuup.” Claire fumbled with the laces on her sneakers.

  “Do I have to come over and tie your shoes for you?” Luce looked and sounded amused. “My darling child I birthed myself.”

  Claire flipped her off again, except, in doing so, she ruined the knots she’d made on her laces, and by the time she looked down at her shoes again, she didn’t even know what she’d done.

  Luce sighed like she was really trying to fulfill the role of Claire’s disappointed mother and walked over.

  “Give me your foot.” Luce grabbed Claire’s left foot herself when Claire was too slow to move. “You’re a disgrace to the family name, my child.”

  “So I’ve been told.” Claire mumbled, untying the monstrosity that had happened to her right shoe.

  Luce flicked her forehead. “No.”

  “Sorry, mother .” Claire mocked.

  Luce scrunched up her face. “I’ve changed my mind, I don’t want to be your mother anymore.”

  Claire finished her bow neatly. “Good job, you already know your lines.” She grinned as she looked up. Luce stared at her in confusion for a full ten seconds before covering her face and turning away, shaking with laughter.

  “Took you a while.” Claire stood up and dusted herself off. “Right then. Missy?”

  Luce jumped to her feet. “Yes!”

  The common room was empty. Everyone else had gone to bed, resting in preparation for the week ahead of classes. Everyone else were smart, privileged bitches who didn’t have a friend dragging them out into the cold deserted corridors to see a three-headed monstrosity of a dog who had routinely tried to murder both of them before.

  Having no one to stop them from leaving the common room was great though. And the hallways were still just as deserted as the common room. Even the cats — who normally owned Hogwarts’ hallways at night — seemed to neglect their nightly prowl in favour of sleep.

  Lucky bitches.

  “You keep looking around like we’re being followed.” Luce said conversationally.

  Claire rolled her eyes. “Well someone needs to stop us getting caught again.”

  “I’ll have you know, I stopped us from getting caught by McGonagall last term. The first time anyway.”

  “Oh, so it’s my fault now?”

  “If the shoe fits.” Luce smiled sweetly. “Relax. We’re smarter now.”

  Claire raised an eyebrow. “You’re capable of that?”

  “What, relaxing? Just because you’re an over-anxious — ”

  “Being smart.” Claire interrupted. “I wasn’t aware intelligence was a weapon in your arsenal.”

  “Oh, fuck off.” Luce sped up as they got closer to Missy’s door.

  “Slow down.” Claire matched Luce’s jog with much complaining and reluctance. She might have secretly missed the three-headed dog herself — Missy could be cute in her own blood-thirsty way — she didn’t miss running-through-the-castle much.

  Missy would be behind that door whether they got there right that second or in a few minutes at a more leisurely pace.

  Luce sprinted the final corridor, which was bullshit, because only Claire could lull Missy to sleep, and Claire could only do that if she actually had breath to sing with, so Luce really shouldn’t be running ahead and opening the door with such delight and peering around.

  Luce gasped in horror.

  “What?!” Claire broke into a sprint to meet Luce at the door, all manner of horrible solutions running through her mind. Dumbledore hadn’t explicitly forbade going to this corridor, maybe new first years who didn’t know about its danger had gone exploring and now their remains decorated the room Luce and Claire had spent so much time in as first years themselves — or maybe it was a professor, catching them in the act, ready to land them in detention for the rest of the year — or it was Potter, Weasley and Granger — or —

  Claire stopped dead at the door.

  Missy had vanished.

Chapter Text

 “She’s gone.” Luce said numbly.

  Claire wanted to suggest that they’d gone to the wrong corridor. It had been two months. Claire was exhausted. Luce was jet-lagged and forgetful.

  But they had walked this exact path hundreds of times. Luce had once joked she could do it with her eyes closed. When Claire had called bull, Luce had proceeded to do just that, with Claire pulling her out of sight of patrolling teachers and ghosts. Two months of being away from the castle wasn’t going to erase that kind of muscle memory.

  They had spent countless hours in the corridor, sleepless nights attempting to tame a monster of a dog and succeeding. Everything was the same as how they’d left it. The melted wax spot on the ground from when Luce had knocked a torch over the night they had discovered music sent Missy straight to sleep, or the dark splotches of blood in the corner from the disastrous ‘falling down the moving staircase’ incident.

  There was a lonely aura to the hallway now. Dust on every surface, and the torches looked as though they hadn’t been lit for weeks, throwing strangely eerie shadows across the walls.

  Claire took a step further into the room. “She can’t have just … disappeared .”

  Luce gestured angrily. “Then where is she?!”

  Claire looked around the hallway helplessly. The trapdoor Missy had never got off lay completely unprotected in the centre, not a trace of dog fur to be found. Claire had only ever seen Missy part ways from it once, when Luce had made Claire lure Missy away so she could look. The results had been Luce almost dying via three-mouths-of-sharp-teeth and in Luce’s words ‘a whole lotta nothing’.

  Claire walked over to it and tried to pull at the ring of the trapdoor.

  Luce stomped over. “What are you doing?”

  Claire dropped the ring. “It’s locked.”

  “You’ve got your fancy magic spell, use it.”

  “I was just about to.” Claire grumbled as she drew her wand and tapped the wooden planks. “Alohomora.”

  It sprung up and open, almost smashing both girls in the face.

  Claire peered down into the now open gaping hole in the floor. Luce wasn’t lying last year when she had said there was a whole lot of nothing there. Claire couldn’t see a bottom — if there even was one and it didn’t just fall straight through the earth.

  She looked up at Luce. “You don’t think Missy’s down there, do you?”

  Luce tilted her head as she surveyed the space. She squinted into the darkness, then stuck her head through, holding the edges of the door tightly. “MISSY! MISSY, ARE YOU THERE GIRL?!”

  She angled her head so her ear was pressed against the black nothingness.

  Claire didn’t know how a shout so loud could be almost completely swallowed whole by a dark square. Nothing even echoed.

  Luce pulled her head up, dissatisfied, but shook her head. “Missy wouldn’t fit through the trapdoor anyway.”

  Claire closed the door and heard a bolt magically slide into place. “Probably.”

  She turned back to the entrance and frowned when she caught a glimpse of a vaguely familiar flash of fabric, perhaps the only colourful thing in the room other than Luce’s bright pink Hello Kitty pyjamas.

 The blanket Luce had spent weeks making for Missy was folded neatly in the corner.

  “What?” Luce asked when Claire started moving towards it. “I doubt she’s hiding underneath there.”

  “No.” Claire agreed, squatting next to the blanket and running her finger across the dust collected across the folds. “But I doubt she folded this up herself when she left either.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Someone took Missy. And they left the blanket folded up in the corner.” Claire squinted at Luce’s face.

  “Almost like they wanted us to find it.” Luce glared at the blanket like it had personally offended her. “Well good. They left clues. Bastard doesn’t get to steal my dog and get away with it.”

  Claire frowned. This was very rapidly turning into a would-be murder mystery, with Missy’s dog-napper as the soon-to-be victim (and Luce the serial killer). If they could find him.

  Claire looked at Luce again.

   When they found him.

  Claire stifled a quiet sigh, her hopes of a peaceful year slowly slipping out of her grasp, waving with a tantalizing smile that mimicked Luce’s very closely.

  “Can we at least wait until the weekend, when we’re both thinking more clearly because it’s not the middle of the night ?” Claire implored.

  Luce looked like Claire had just confessed to caring about Missy’s disappearances less than Hermione’s blood status.

  “Missy could be hurt. Or scared , or alone , or tortured and dying , or dead .” Luce glared at Claire scathingly. “But you know, if you really want that on your conscience in favour for … what did you want, sorry … sleep ? Then fine, let’s go back to our dorm.”

  Claire dearly wanted to say ‘yes, let’s go’. She also dearly wanted to survive the night, and she would become Luce’s first victim of the year if she refused to look for Missy.

  “No …” She said reluctantly. “What can you in your great and noble wisdom deduce from the dog-napper leaving a blanket?”

  “They are a cruel, heartless monster who does not want my dog to experience simple pleasures in life.” Luce said promptly.

  Claire pinched the bridge of her nose. “Anything else? Maybe something that will help us find your dog?”

  “Stop sounding so …” Luce waved a hand vaguely over Claire. “You.”

  Claire arched an eyebrow. “Stop sounding so me?”

  “Judgemental asshole bitch.” Luce collected the blanket up in her arms and grinned.

  “I am not a judgemental asshole bitch.” Claire protested.

  “Uh-huh.” Luce nodded. “Get the door?”

  Claire scowled as she pulled it open. She wasn’t full asshole, anyway. She could be nice. She was being nice. Judgemental, maybe occasionally. For the right reasons. But asshole bitch? No.

  “I can feel you glaring.” Luce said in a sing-song voice over her shoulder.

  Claire closed the door carefully, wincing at the creaking. “I’m not glaring.”

  “Bull.”

  “And what,” the silkily sinister voice made both girls freeze in their tracks, “exactly do you think you are doing?”

  Claire turned around slowly. Professor Snape was standing in the middle of the corridor, staring at them disapprovingly.

  “Drugs,” Luce answered confidently, then froze and swore.

  Claire pinched her arm hard.

  Snape surveyed them both coldly. “In the forbidden third floor corridor?”

  “Well,” Claire said, thinking quickly on her feet. It was hard to format an appropriate lie when all her brain was chanting was fuck Luce a hundred thousand times over. “Professor Dumbledore didn’t mention it in his speech this year, so we were curious. He gave another warning about the Forbidden Forest but not the corridor. So we thought it wasn’t dangerous anymore.”

  Luce nodded viciously. “There’s nothing there.”

  “Nothing!” Claire agreed.

  “Well, except a very inviting trapdoor, but it’s too dark and bottomless to explore.” Luce said sadly. “OW.”

  Claire pinched her arm again.

  “You two girls are very lucky I was the one to find you, and not one of my colleagues.” Snape sneered. “I hope you know that. We do not need to start the year with negative points. I doubt your peers will be extraordinarily pleased with you.”

  Claire and Luce both shook their heads enthusiastically.

  “As it is …” Snape started.

  “I have insomnia.” Luce blurted.

  Snape stopped and stared at her. “Pardon?”

  “I can’t sleep at nights.” Luce powered on, yanking her arm out of the way when Claire made to pinch her again. “Stop that. It helps to walk around. Claire came with me so I wouldn’t get lost, and safety in numbers and all that.”

  Snape blinked slowly. “Insomnia.” He repeated.

  Luce nodded. “Yes.”

  “I thought you said you were doing drugs.” Snape arched an eyebrow.

  “Well, yeah, melatonin.” Luce shifted the blankets in her arms. “It’s a muggle thing, it helps you sleep.”

  Claire looked at her, confused. “Didn’t you say your parents took you off melatonin because it made you more hyper — ”

  “Shut the fuck up.” Luce hissed, throwing out a hand to cover Claire’s mouth that succeeded in slapping Claire across the face, and spilling blanket all over the floor.

  Luce grinned at Snape sheepishly.

  Snape looked from Luce, to Claire, to the blanket on the floor, back to Luce again. “So if I was to owl your parents — ”

  “The owl would die.” Luce blurted.

  Snape looked like he regretted even engaging the girls in conversation at all. “And how exactly would the owl meet its demise?”

  “Travelling across the pacific ocean. A very long distance.” Luce nodded a few times to emphasise her point.

  “Owls can travel very long distances.”

  “They still need to rest. The Pacific Ocean is like, thousands of kilometres. An owl can’t make that without rest.

  Snape looked at Claire, as if wishing to deal with a more intelligent life force.

  Claire was not going to be that more intelligent life force.

  “You’d have to get special permission from the various Ministries to access the international Floo Network or Porkeys, which is a lot of paperwork and forms and hard work.” Claire nodded along with Luce. “All for confirming if Luce has insomnia and takes melatonin. Forgive me for saying this, but it seems a bit … much , don’t you think?”

  Snape closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his crooked nose.

  Claire and Luce looked at each other. Claire held her breath.

  “Why,” Snape asked, filled with irritation, “do I work with children?”

  “Does this mean we’re off the hook?” Luce blurted.

  Snape opened his eyes to glare at her. “Of course not. You both will serve detention with me for a week.”

  “A week?!” Luce shrieked. “God! We got one last year, and we’d been sneaking out practically every night! First night out we get caught and get a week’s worth of detentions.”

  Claire covered Luce’s mouth so quickly and aggressively she slapped her friend in the face. It seemed to be a recurring theme of the night.

  Claire smiled guiltily. “I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

  Snape had I don’t believe one word of the bullshit you are spewing written all over his face.

  “Frankly, I don’t care what mischief you two are up to. You can make your own decisions and mistakes. But those mistakes will cost your house, our house valuable house points — which we do not get easily, I will have you know — and thus lose respect with your peers.”

  “We don’t get caught easily.” Luce mumbled.

  Claire wanted to strangle her, but settled for a not-so-gentle kick to the ankles.

  “Is this because I made you be nice to Granger on the train?” Luce demanded, stepping away from Claire and rubbing her ankle with her opposite foot. “You don’t even kick well!”

  “My office, tomorrow night. Both of you. Seven o’clock. Don’t be late.” Snape strode purposefully down the corridor before pausing and turning back around. “Next time you go wandering around the castle at night — and yes, I’m not stupid, I know there will be a next time for you two — don’t be foolish enough to get caught.”

  He marched forward.

  Luce looked at Snape, then at Claire, then at Snape. “Does this mean you’ll tell us what they did with Missy?”

  Snape either didn’t hear, or didn’t care. He kept walking and was soon out of sight.

  Luce looked at Claire confidently. “I can break him.”

  “Luce.” Claire said disappointedly.

* * *

  It seemed fitting that after a discussion of owls getting Claire and Luce a week’s worth of detentions, it would be an owl bearing trouble the next morning. Of course, considering who the trouble was intended for, Claire didn’t find herself feeling even an ounce of sympathy.

  Ron Weasley deserved that howler. And the backlash it was sure to cause. Egotistical Gryffindors, thinking that rules don’t apply to them and they can break them as they please.

  Perhaps his father facing an inquiry at work would give him a harsh dose of reality. His social standings was hardly in his favour, nor was his pocket. If Father Weasel got in serious trouble at work, they’d all end up penniless in a ditch within the week.

  Add in the beginning of Potter’s fan club, accompanied with signed photographs, it would prove to be an … interesting term for sure.

  At least Malfoy had plenty of new anti-Potter material for his common room court rooms, and his own crowd of mesmerised first years hanging onto his every word.

  Joy.

  Defence lessons proved to be even worse than Claire had predicted. Instead of doing literally anything relevant to defence against the Dark Arts, Lockhart made them do a quiz essentially digging to see how much they’d stalked his life, then read out his overglorified autobiographies. Apparently there had been an ‘episode’ in his first class, resulting in a destroyed classroom, and no practical lessons ever again.

  Claire would much prefer to be locked in a slimy dungeon for three hours every night, reorganising Snape’s precious potions ingredients cabinet, than one more hour long torture session with Lockhart.

  Especially since Snape didn’t last a week monitoring Claire and Luce in detention. He barely lasted two nights before a third smashed bottle of some potion ingredient and a fourth heated argument had him screaming at them to leave his office and not to bother coming back for the rest of the week.

  Luce high-fived Claire as soon as the door closed behind them, two hours earlier than their expected end time.

  “We have plenty of time to find Missy now!” Luce declared cheerfully. 

  Claire looked mournfully in the direction of her bed.

  “Ah ah ah, I can see you thinking it.” Luce snapped her fingers in front of Claire’s eyes. “No.”

  “Can’t we do it in the three hours we’re assumed to be in detention tomorrow? After I’ve slept?”

  Luce looked at her like it was the most outlandish idea anyone had ever come up with.

  Claire sighed. “Fine. Where to first, oh great and fearless leader?”

  “The owlery.”

Chapter Text

Dearest Mother and Fasha,

  I am writing to thee to inquire about thous wellbeing — okay I can’t do this fancy writing shit anymore, Claire said I should be formal. Then she got mad at me because Shakespeare isn’t ‘proper writing technique’. 

  I’m pretty sure she’s a robot.

  Basically there was a three-headed dog at school last year, I told you about her, Missy, and we went to go see her the other night like normal and she wasn’t there. So. Could you perhaps, mayhaps even write to our principal and ask about where she is? 

  Oh, and don’t get mad, but I kinda got detentions every night for a week after I snuck out to find her. Whoops. Good news though, Snape couldn’t deal with me, so we got off light. And if someone owls you asking about me running off to take drugs, it was just a joke about melatonin. It’s not my fault Snape took it seriously.

  Okay, love you bye!

  Luce

  Claire glared at her friend. “‘I can’t do this fancy writing shit anymore, Claire said I should be formal, then got mad at me because Shakespeare isn’t proper writing technique, I’m pretty sure she’s a robot.’ Seriously?”

  Luce tied the note to an owl. “Well you did.”

  “You’re impossible.”

  “And you’re a robot.” Luce sent the owl on its way with a cheerful wave after it.

  “I am not a robot.”

  “Yeah, but I bet you use that fancy ass Shakespeare language in your letters to your parents.”

  “I do not.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I don’t!”

  “Whatever you say.” Luce grinned.

* * *

  “You know,” Luce said conversationally. “We haven’t done anything interesting this year.”

  Claire stared at her. ‘This year’ had consisted of all of three days, in which Luce had already gotten them a week’s worth of detention while dragging her around the castle trying to find a missing three-headed dog. Claire had already received another I swear to Merlin, don’t fuck up letter from her parents, citing all the curses they’d use on her if she messed up spectacularly enough to ruin her sisters’ arranged marriages.

  That was plenty ‘interesting’ enough for Claire.

  “So I’ve been thinking …” Luce prompted when Claire didn’t audibly respond in time. Another horrific statement with devastating meaning.

  “When do you think?” Claire muttered, rubbing her forehead.

  “Rarely.” Luce cheerfully exclaimed. “ But when I do, I have great ideas!”

  She jumped on Claire’s bed, practically buzzing with energy to eagerly share whatever ‘great ideas’ she had come up with.

  “Please can you think logically .” Claire corrected herself.

  “Too late.” Luce trilled.

  Claire groaned. Luce grinned.

  “I’m not doing anything against the rules or anything illegal.” Claire said firmly.

  Luce pouted. “Setting the bar pretty low there, huh? It’s almost like you don’t have any faith in me.”

  “I don’t.” Claire said bluntly. “I’ve seen your definition of interesting.”

  “My definition of interesting is the dictionary definition.”

  “Suuure. Why don’t you try out for Quidditch or something, that’s fun and dangerous.”

  Luce narrowed her eyes. “You want me to play the death sport on brooms?”

  “It’s not a death sport on brooms .” Claire dismissed. “It’s perfectly safe.”

  “Perfectly safe except people fly a hundred feet above ground and get attacked by cannibals.”

  “Cannon balls, not cannibals.” Claire corrected, trying not to stare too judgmentally at her friend. “Completely different things.”

  “Stop bullying me, they’re both deadly.”

  Claire shrugged. “We have healers. Besides, they added safety precautions after what happened last year with Longbottom breaking his wrist in flying lessons and golden boy Potter having his moment.”

  No safety precautions whatsoever had been added. Claire was full of shit. But if she got Luce obsessed with a mediocrely safe school-monitored sport instead of whatever reckless danger Luce had concocted, she should be okay.

  “I don’t want to.” Luce decided, because she was stubborn and hated Claire and any resemblance of peace.

  “Wuss.” Claire taunted.

  Luce glared at her. “Look who’s talking, coward.”

  Claire looked at her, completely unaffected. “If you get good enough, you can hit people with a bat and not get yelled at.”

  Luce stared back stubbornly for a count of ten before looking away. “When’s tryouts?”

  And there it was, the error in Claire’s beautiful, faultless plan. She didn’t have any idea in the slightest about when Quidditch tryouts were. And she wasn’t about to send Luce over to Marcus Flint to ask, nor was she stupid enough to do it herself.

  Luce saw it on Claire’s face.

  “Oh, you don’t even know . The great, all-knowing Claire Belstring proposes a faulty idea, the holes in her knowledge are gaping and leave her poor friend falling through, ahhhhh!”

  Claire shoved Luce off her bed. How was that for falling?

  “It’d be on the noticeboard downstairs.”

  It was not on the noticeboard downstairs.

  Claire could feel Luce staring at her pointedly. “Oh fuck off.”

  Luce gasped. “You tell me to fuck off? After proposing I try out for the Quidditch team and being able to give me no further information because you are completely unknowing? After shoving me off your bed cruelly? Oh!”

  “ You want to try out for the Quidditch team?” Malfoy’s loud, scathing voice quietened most other conversations in the room.

  Some people immediately looked over to see what was going on, interested. Others glanced over, rolled their eyes, and went back to what they were doing. Claire saw someone mouth ‘good luck’ at her and Luce.

  There were mixed reactions.

  Luce immediately went from her ‘woe is me’ pose to a defiant stance. “What’s it to you if I do?”

  “I just think it’s foolish of the troublemaking inexperienced halfblood to think she has a chance against those of us that have been playing Quidditch for our whole lives.”

  Luce crossed her arms. “I just think it sounds like you’re afraid this ‘troublemaking inexperienced halfblood’ is going to beat your pureblooded ass in your precious sport.”

  Someone ‘oooh’ed.

  Malfoy’s pale face flushed. “I am not afraid , least of all of you .”

  Luce grinned. “We’ll see. When’s the tryouts?”

  Malfoy took a second too long to answer, glaring at Luce. “Next Tuesday. Ten at night.”

  Next to him, Crabbe frowned. “Isn’t it this Saturday at eight in the morning?”

  Malfoy looked furious. Luce’s grin widened.

  “Thank you, Crabbe.” She said cheerfully, and dragged Claire away.

* * *

  Claire was woken up at an ungodly time on Saturday morning. She was beginning to severely regret every life choice that led her to suggest Luce join the Slytherin Quidditch team.

  “Don’t make me shove you off this bed, get up!” Luce ripped the sheets off Claire’s bed.

  “Must you torture me so?” Claire asked mournfully, reaching out pathetically for her nice, warm bed sheets, not at all like the cold harsh wind she was sure would slap her in the face the second she stepped out of the castle to join Luce’s reckless crusade of would-be Quidditch glory.

  “ You wanted me to do this.” Luce tapped her foot impatiently on the ground.

  “I wanted you to do this. Not me to do this.”

  “And you’re coming with me, come on.”

  “I don’t want to.” Claire whined childishly. She begrudgingly pulled herself up to a sitting position, if only for the purpose to better glare at her friend.

  Luce patted her shoulder repetitively. “It’s okay, we all have to do things we don’t want to do sometimes. It’s called maturity.”

  Claire glared at the girl who was still patting her goddam shoulder. “I am plenty mature.”

  Luce held her hand still on Claire’s shoulder for a second and smiled sweetly at her.

  Then shoved her off the fucking bed.

  Claire’s shriek could barely be heard over Luce’s loud, evil laughter.

  “How’s that for mature?” Luce looked down at Claire, grinning. She held out a hand to help her up. “Get up.”

  “You just shoved me off my bed!”

  “Do you want help or not?”

  Claire grabbed Luce’s outstretched hand and tugged it, trying to drag her down with her.

  Luce stumbled maybe half a step before regaining her footing and looking down at Claire.

  “That was pitiful.”

  “Leave me alooooone.”

  Luce pulled Claire up. “Don’t make me parent you through this. You’re a big mature girl and I’m sure you can dress and walk for yourself.”

  Claire glared at her. “I hate you. You’re so mean to me.”

  Luce laughed again, proving she was a horrible cruel person. “You’ll live.”

  “Maybe I won’t.” Claire grumbled, fishing through her clothes. “Maybe you’ll murder me.”

  “Only if you don’t hurry up.” Luce sat on Claire’s bed and watched.

  Claire grabbed her clothes and slammed her closet door. “Have I mentioned I hate you recently?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because I do.” Claire pulled on the bathroom door handle. “A lot.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  “You suck.” Claire slammed the bathroom door behind her.

  “You were the one to say I should try out for the team!” Luce’s infuriating voice sang out. “ I was going to suggest leading the house elves on a glorious strike accompanied by a food fight and spiking the Gryffindor’s food.”

  The idea of a Luce-led house elf strike was a tremendously horrifying one — so much so that it almost completely made up for this Quidditch try out early morning wake up call.

  “I could still do that.” Luce pondered. “It would be glorious .”

  “No.” Claire snapped.

  “Well hurry up and get changed before I get bored.”

  Luce and bored did not go together. Luce and bored meant chaos. In order for the castle to remain standing, Luce needed to be preoccupied at all times. Luce being bored was almost as terrifying as watching Quirrell-Voldemort drink unicorn blood like a man dying of thirst last term.

  That last thought made Claire pause. There was a way to keep Luce out of large amounts of trouble, she supposed. Except for the fact last time she had attempted to tutor Luce in useful dark spells, it had been a rather unfortunate time and had resulted in Claire being a major bitch about it.

  Luce had learnt the spells Claire had wanted her to learn though. Moderately. Kinda. Three long months ago.

  Claire tilted her head back and groaned. All progress would have been lost. Luce wouldn’t be able to name a single spell Claire had taught her. She’d have to go back to square one, find all her notes, drag a whining Luce to the dreaded library. It would be so much effort .

  “Doesn’t sound like you’re getting dressed in there.” The infuriatingly difficult half blood taunted from outside. It was like her biggest problem in life was seeing how much trouble she could get herself and Claire into, or being late for trying out to a team that wouldn’t even dream of accepting her anyway, and not the very real threat of she had fucking punched the Dark Lord in the face and was retarded enough to think that it couldn’t possibly come back to bite her in the ass later.

  “Give me a second!” Claire snapped.

  “Ooh, someone’s angry. Okay, okay, I’m giving you a second. One mississippi. Oop, that’s your second! Are you done yet or am I starting a house elf revolution?”

  “You know, most revolutions end with the starter’s head on a spike.” Claire spat. “Do you want to keep your head, Luce?”

  Luce groaned. “You’re mean to me.”

  “I am as nice as you deserve.” Claire opened the bathroom door.

  “Took you long enough.” Luce jumped to her feet.

  “I would’ve been quicker if someone hadn’t rushed me .” Claire angrily thumped her clothes on her bed.

  “You needed to be rushed.” Luce stood on her tippy toes and patted Claire’s head.

  Claire smacked her hand away. “I’m dragging you to the library after this. We’re studying defensive spells again.”

  Luce’s look of abject horror made up for everything she’d done that morning.

* * *

  Claire saw the red and gold clad flyers first and almost marched right back to the castle to demonstrate exactly what defensive spells she’d teach Luce on Crabbe, for giving them the date of the Gryffindor team tryouts .

  Even Luce hesitated before she noticed last year’s Slytherin team gathered on the side of the ground and beginning to march on the field.

  “Come on.” She pointed.

  Claire looked at the Slytherin Quidditch team. Then at the Gryffindors. Then at the Slytherins. Then at Luce. “Oh God no.”

  “Oh God yes, come on!” Luce started running towards their housemates.

  “It’s going to be a full out fight!” Claire yelled after her friend’s retreating back.

  “Good!”

  Claire resisted a scream. She needed that breath to run after Luce so she could murder her . Brutally. Eliminating half of Claire’s life’s problems with the cessation of the breath of one girl.

  Luce was holding a broom, standing slightly behind the Slytherin team and looking very confused by the time Claire caught up with her.

  Claire pointed at the broom. “Where — ?”

  Marcus Flint and Oliver Wood had started a face off at some point in the near past.

  “Ah, but I’ve got a specially signed note here from Professor Snape. ‘I, Professor S. Snape, give the Slytherin team permission to practise today on the Quidditch field owing to the need to train their new Seeker’ .”

  “You’ve got a new Seeker? Where?”

  The entire team parted dramatically to reveal Malfoy. Of course he’d have a huge entrance planned. Couldn’t go without the flair.

  “Are you Lucius Malfoy’s son?” One of the Weasel twin’s faces twisted with distaste.

  “And Hamza?” The other looked confused.

  Every eye turned from Malfoy to Luce. Malfoy looked furious, as did many of the other Slytherins. Most of the Gryffindors looked confused.

  “And Claire.” It was almost like Luce wanted to be used as target practice.

  “What are you doing here?” Flint hissed.

  “Emotional support.” Claire pointed at Luce. “Against my will.”

  Luce glared at Claire. “Really?” She looked back at Flint. “I’m here for tryouts. Like what you got Snape’s permission for?”

  Flint looked at the team furiously.

  Claire could read the room. Luce obviously couldn’t, or just didn’t care, but Claire could and did. She reached forward to grab Luce’s arm, fingernails digging into skin slightly.

  “We should just go.” Claire whispered.

  “No.” Luce shook her off stubbornly.

  One of the other students took pity on the girls, or perhaps just wanted to take them to a more secluded spot to murder them. Either way, when Adrian Pucey stepped forward, took Luce by the shoulder and led her and Claire a short distance away from the two opposing teams, the girls went with him.

  Claire could hear Flint regaining his composure quickly behind them, going on to mention how Draco’s father had gifted the whole Slytherin team Nimbus Two Thousand and One broomsticks, like the one Luce for some reason held in her hand.

  “So what’s going on?” Luce demanded.

  Pucey sighed. “Yeah it’s ‘tryouts’,” the way he said it made Claire think the team was already decided and there was nothing Luce could do to change anything. Oh well she tried, time for spells and study.

  “But the Gryffindors overstayed their welcome, so we’re trying to get them off the field so we can fly. Wood booked the pitch from six, they’ve all had plenty of time. And the only way they’re going to moderately respect us is if we’re — ”

  He trailed off, very obviously struggling to find a tame word for what stance they were taking.

  “Intimidating.” Luce filled in for him.

  Pucey tilted his head slightly. “Yeah, let’s go with that. So uh, maybe just save the questions for after we get them to fuck off?”

  Luce nodded with an agreeability she never seemed to display with Claire. Why was she being nice to Pucey but not to Claire, ever?

  “Sure, no problem!”

  Pucey nodded, looking relieved. “Oh, wait — you’re not trying out for Seeker, are you?” He glanced at the teams, then at Luce. “Malfoy paid his way on, but we’ve already accepted the brooms. In the interest of the rest of us. He’s a decent player too, I’ve been told. Not that he has to be that great, if he’s on a Nimbus Two Thousand and One, but you know. I’d definitely change your try out position if you were aiming for Seeker.”

  “Uhhh.” Luce looked at Claire uncertainly. “Is Seeker the one that has the least rules and/or you hit people with a bat in?”

  Pucey looked confused. “I don’t — think so …”

  “Beater.” Claire sighed. “She’s going for Beater.”

  “Yeah, the one I get to beat people in!” Luce nodded enthusiastically.

  Pucey grinned. “I like your attitude.”

  “No one asked your opinion, you filthy little mudblood.”

  Malfoy always did have a loud voice.

  Luce’s head whipped around before even the Gryffindors could say anything. “OI!”

Both teams hesitated their homicidal tendencies slightly, glancing over at the surprising loud shout coming from such a small girl.

  “It was at that Granger girl.” Pucey squinted at the assembled crowd. “I think.”

  Luce considered this. “Carry on.”

  Claire didn’t think Luce meant ‘attack each other screaming and cursing’ when she said ‘carry on’. But it was also Luce Hamza.

  Someone gasped, “How dare you?” Claire didn’t know if Weasley was talking to Malfoy or Luce, because he was looking between them both in horror and disgust.

  Granger looked at Luce when she caught her voice again, saying “Excuse me?” in her aggravating know-it all tone of a voice.

  “I don’t like you.” Luce said back sweetly, then turned to Pucey again. “So about this Beater role — ”

Chapter Text

  The Slytherin team was so fixed in their way that they had refused to accept any tryouts or adjustments to their perfect team that weren’t spawned from monetary bribes.

  Luce did not make the team.

  Adrian Pucey, however, seemed to like Luce’s ‘I wanna be Beater to beat people up legally’ attitude enough that he had pulled some strings and secured Luce a place as their reserve player. She’d be trained to be able to fill in any role and while there was no guarantee of her playing a game all season, she’d attend every practise and Flint would ‘not go easy on the second year who thinks she’s topshit’.

  Luce had said “good, don’t” and dragged Claire along to watch every practice.

  At least Missy’s room last year had been inside the castle. Claire didn’t have to put herself or her study books through the danger of rain.

  She got really damn good at the impervious charm really quickly, much to Luce’s chagrin.

  “How are you always so fucking dry?” Luce stomped over to Claire’s perch in the stands, leaving a trail of mud and water behind her.

  Claire hastily collected all her papers before Luce’s trail of mud and destruction dripped onto her homework. “Hello to you too.”

  “I was only gone two hours.” Luce collapsed in the stand next to her and groaned loudly. “Why is Flint so mean ?”

  “You told him not to go easy on you.” Claire said, amused.

  “I wasn’t looking for logic , I was looking for pity .”

  “You’re dragging me out here every time you have training, you’ve dried up all the pity I possess.”

  “You don’t have rights.” Luce poked Claire’s cheek, smearing mud over her face.

  “Seriously?!”

  Luce grinned. “Not so water-repellent now, are you? So how are you doing that?” Luce poked her again when her only response was a lot of glaring and wiping the mud off her face and moving away in disgust.

  “Magic, obviously, stop it.” Claire hit Luce’s hand away.

  Luce pouted. “You just don’t love me.”

  “No.”

  “My heart.” Luce dramatically clutched her heart and fell backwards into the stands.

  If her yelp and “OW” was any indication, she didn’t mean to actually fall.

  Claire sniggered and stood up, looking down at her friend, currently sprawled out, limbs muddied and askew, blinking in very-visible confusion at the sudden change in position.

  “You good?” Claire held a hand out.

  Luce grabbed her hand and yanked her down. Claire’s head hit the seat and her papers flew everywhere.

  “And now you are not elevated with your fancy smancy magic.” Luce, finished with her path of destruction, shoved Claire off her.

  “I hate you.” Claire rubbed her head. “I hate you a lot.”

  “You love me.” Luce said with all her misplaced confidence. She stood up first, rained down water and mud on Claire again , then held a hand down to help her up, like she wasn’t the reason Claire was on the ground in the first place.

  Luce barely stumbled when Claire tried to pull her down in revenge.

  “Well that was rude.” Luce pulled Claire up. “I was just trying to help my poor friend.”

  “Your poor friend that you shoved on the ground .”

  “Exactly!” Luce said brightly, no remorse whatsoever to grace her face. “Get up.”

  Claire resisted the urge to strangle her. It would probably, based on previous, similar arguments, end with Claire again on the ground, the victim of an assault she herself had launched. She would just keep her dignity thanks.

  Or, she thought forlornly, shaking mud off her skin and clothes, whatever was left of it.

  “Do I get a hand or has that offer been retracted?” Claire looked up at Luce pitifully.

  “Retracted.” Luce said promptly and predictably, clutching her heart again with an overly wounded expression for effect. “You tried to shove me on the ground. After I offered you my help. After everything I’ve done for you.”

  “Sweet Salazar.” Claire muttered. This was going to be a long walk back to the castle.

  “I mean, everything I’ve done for you. Do you even know how awesome I’ve been?”

  “What, dragging me into life threatening danger every three weeks because you felt bored?” Claire mumbled, collecting her mostly salvageable papers up again. Magic existed, it would all be fine, she didn’t need to fight Luce.

  “Hey, it’s not every three weeks.”

  “My apologies. You dragged me to see Missy every night.”

  “Missy is adorable .”

  “Missy tried to eat me .”

  “You scared her.”

  “I — ” Claire stopped herself, biting her finger and glaring at the ground for a total of five seconds.

  “You can’t respond to that, huh?” Luce asked smugly.

  “My responses all qualify as use of unnecessary dark magic.”

  Luce squinted at Claire’s face. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Watch me.”

  Luce silently picked up the last of Claire’s scattered papers and handed it to her.

  “Thanks.” Claire muttered.

  “What’s a praetrunco ?” Luce asked.

  Claire shifted the papers. “A spell.”

  “Well no shit, Sherlock.” Luce snorted. “What does it do?”

  Claire sighed. “It roughly translates to either in advance or to sever / cut off . In this case, it’s essentially a darker form of diffindo , which of course, can be used for physical bodily harm or murder. Paetrunco is more focused, causing a slower, more painful death. It’s easier for the caster to cause harm with, since using diffindo requires a lot more precision.”

  Luce took a step back, suddenly seeming to take Claire’s threat of dark magic being used against her more seriously.

  Claire rolled her eyes. “I’m going to teach it to you, not use it against you, idiot.

  Luce took another step away and crossed her arms defiantly. “I’m not going to use that spell.”

  Claire snorted. “I wasn’t going to teach it to you yet. You haven’t been able to perform much simpler spells, why would I assume you’ve grown more competent, after three months away from magic?”

  Luce shook her head. “I don’t feel safe.”

  “You shouldn’t.” Claire stared at her. “You punched the Dark Lord in the face — ”

  Luce interrupted her with a loud groan and tilted her head back to look at the sky, as if to ask God for help.

  “ — what part of this are you not taking seriously?!” Claire felt as irritated as Luce looked.

  “Are you still on about this? So what, I punched some noseless guy in the face?! I didn’t have a choice, he was going to kill me!”

  “You think that matters to him? He has no concept of self defence, you disrespected him, and should he realise who you are, he will murder you himself, and in the — ”

  “He’s dead, isn’t that what Potter’s famous for?”

  “ In the case he finds you of little importance, he will send someone else to do it.” Claire wanted to shake her stupid, reckless friend until she got the thought through her head. “He is not dead . He is simply in hiding, and he will return. Maybe not right now, maybe Potter can keep vanquishing him. But Potter, however magically talented he apparently is, is still a twelve year old boy. And Dumbledore couldn’t stop the Dark Lord last time. What makes you think you, a half-blood girl of no extraordinary talent, could fight him?”

  Luce’s fists were trembling and clenched at her sides, and her jaw was set.

  “If I’m so incapable of learning basic spells, unlike you, and my chances are so low because I don’t know dark fucking magic, then why are you bothering with me? Go cut your losses and forget about attempting to help the ‘half-blood of no extraordinary talent’?”

  Claire wanted to tear her own hair out. Luce didn’t understand how limited her — and by extension, Claire’s — choices were. And it wasn’t like Claire could give up on Luce and leave her to her fate either. Luce was a fool who couldn’t perform magic, but she was Claire’s fool, apparently, and she couldn’t just very well get rid of her.

  “You have some, however mediocre, level of talent, and a whole lot of fucking stubbornness, so if you train and learn how to defend yourself you might just survive. So you will learn coque sanguine and you will learn praetrunco and whatever other spells I tell you to, because I want to keep you alive, Luce Hamza, and you will not jeopardize mine and your own safety because you are a coward .”

  Claire stomped past her.

  “Fine!” Luce yelled after her. “What do you need me to bring?”

* * *

  “Hey.” Luce tapped Claire’s shoulder with too much excitement to possess, two hours into an excruciatingly painful study session in the library. “My mum’s amazing.”

  “Why must you rub it in?” Claire muttered, pushing back the letter being shoved in her face. “What’s this?”

  “Mum found out where Missy was!”

  “Yay.” Claire said unenthusiastically. Goodbye again, full nights of sleep!

  Luce either didn’t register or didn’t mention the sarcasm in Claire’s voice.

  “Yeah, apparently Hagrid had to get a licence to own her, now that they had to register what happened last term with Potter and his mates, so the school’s using her as a guard dog, I guess? They basically let her loose in the Forbidden Forest and have a special collar to prevent her from getting within a certain distance of the school, so it’s not a danger to the students blah blah blah. They had to document it with the international Registry because she’s one of the only of her kind.”

  Claire blinked a few times slowly. “That … makes sense, I guess.” She frowned. “Why is this the first I’m hearing about this?”

  “Oh, I forgot.” Luce said without a second thought, bouncing up and down excitedly. Claire was left once again to wonder if she was even capable of having a thought, second or otherwise. “But yeah! Now we know where Missy is!”

  “Oh no.” Claire shook her head vehemently. “I am not exploring the Forbidden Forest with you.”

  Luce pouted. “It’s not exploring , it’s finding my dog .”

  Claire glared at her.

  “Our dog.” Luce amended.

  “No.”

  Luce nodded happily. “My dog.”

  “No!” Claire exclaimed. “Not your dog. A three headed dog that has previously tried to murder us, that now lives in a place filled with creatures who want to eat us.”

  “I am a snack.” Luce nodded seriously.

  “No.”

  “You were the one who said they wanted to eat us. I’m agreeing with you. Do you not want me to agree with you? I love arguing, it’s really no problem at all, like, I would take so much joy in disagreeing with everything you proceed to say — ”

  “No.” Claire pinched the bridge of her nose. “How many times do I have to say that word? Accept the ‘no’ Luce.”

  “Accept the yes, Luce.” Luce nodded. “I agree.”

  “That is not what I said.”

  “That is what you said, yes. Lots of yeses. You’re very enthusiastic about going to see Missy. You think we should go see Missy right now.”

  “I’m not under the Imperius Curse, Luce, you’re not convincing me to go to the forest with you, you’re just pissing me off.”

  Luce pouted. “When are you going to teach me the Imperius Curse?”

  Claire arched an eyebrow. “You want to use the Imperius on me, to make me go see Missy?”

  “No!” Luce gasped, acting all high and mighty and offended. She cracked her dramatic facade rapidly. “Maybe. When can I learn the Imperius?”

  “ You want to use the imperius on me ?” Claire tutted disapprovingly. “You think I don’t know how to resist the imperius already? God, with the amount of times Maël or Juliette used it on me growing up — I’d be able to resist your imperius with ease , Luce.”

  Luce frowned. “That’s annoying.”

  “For you.” Claire flicked through her notes and tapped the feather end of her quill against her nose. “You can learn the imperius later.”

  “How much later?”

  Claire’s eyes flicked up to Luce, then down to her notes. “You’re oddly enthusiastic about this one, so it would likely be easier for you to learn, since your concentration and willpower would be better. That being said, it’s still a supremely difficult dark magic curse, and I don’t believe the sheer stubbornness you possess will be enough to help you learn it. Not to mention it is an Unforgivable, so requires a larger amount of dark magic that you, a person with what I’m guessing is a purer magical core, would have to overcome — ”

  “How do you know my magic core’s pure?” Luce interrupted Claire’s verbal train of thought.

  Claire crossed her arms and leaned back in her chair. “The majority of witches and wizards start out with a neutral core, leaning towards the purer, light side. Morality and conscience says we favour the light. There are of course, cases of magicfolk starting too light and highly sensitive to the darker aspects of magic, and cases of magicfolk starting too dark. They’re the ones who end up becoming largely powerful, ruthlessly and unethically experimental, and seeking dictatorship. You following?”

  “Start neutral, some start pussies, some start murderers. I suppose your Dark Lord started murderer-y?”

  Claire sighed. “Close enough. Yes, we suppose the Dark Lord and the worst of his Death Eaters started out their magical journey favouring the dark aspects of magic. Ultimately, however, it doesn’t matter how pure or dark your core starts out, it’s your choices, and the path you chose to take, what kind of spells and potions and the like you favour that determine how your core shifts. It’s harder for a predominantly purer magically cored person to shift to the darker side, and vice versa, but it’s supposed to be possible. Difficult, and tedious, but possible. So long as you’re not extremely sensitive to one extreme and get it thrown at you repetitively in an attempt to cure you. That makes it worse.”

  Luce narrowed her eyes. “You sound like you speak from experience.”

  Claire’s thoughts immediately landed on Antoine. She remembered the day the healers had told her parents that there was nothing wrong with Antoine, except that he had a large sensitivity to dark magic.

  “It shouldn’t affect his magical abilities,” The healer had said. “For the most part. Should he or those around him experiment with the Dark Arts, however, his life could be at risk. But you wouldn’t be experimenting with any illegal curses now, Lord Belstring, would you?”

  Her mother had rushed them all out of St Mungo’s and the Healer had gone ‘missing’ the next day.

  Not much had been known about magicfolk with a predominantly light core, even to the present day. Of the two abnormalities, the ministry preferred to know more about those with a darker core, and thus more research was performed on those. For wizards with a lighter core … some in predominantly light families might have never even known. They were not a threat to society as a whole, and were neglected.

  For wizards with a lighter core in predominantly dark families … Antoine was sick often. Their parents tried, the day after his diagnosis, to overwhelm his system with dark magic to starve the light out. Antoine was too sensitive to immediately be hit with dark spells however, and too precious a child to dispose of.

  Even when it was his sisters bearing the brunt of the dark spells, being in the vicinity of an overwhelming amount of dark magic meant that the Belstring family came close to losing more than one child that night.

  “Helloooooo.” Luce waved a hand in front of Claire’s face.

  Claire blinked hard and shook her head, slapping Luce’s hand away sharply.

  “OW, Jesus.” Luce retracted her wounded hand with a pout. “I just asked you a question and you zoned out, what was I supposed to do?”

  “Sorry.” Claire pressed her palms to her eyes. “Lost in thought. What did you say?”

  “You speak from experience?” Luce prompted. “About the light core and dark magic?”

  Claire’s mouth felt dry. If there was any one rule in the Belstring house, it was that no one was to know the truth of Antoine’s condition. A weakly affiliated child?

  “Of course not. I was simply fascinated with the concept years ago. It is important to learn how you as a witch interact with magic so you can better and more successfully produce it. I have books on the subject if you are further interested.”

  Luce gagged. “Theory work? I’d rather die.”

  “I’m sure you would.” Claire shifted papers around without a purpose. Her mind, in its annoying fashion, kept circling back to Antoine. With herself, Mael, Juliette and Elodie out of the house, there would be less people experimenting with dark magic in his vicinity, but their parents were still very much home and still trying to cure him how they could. And Claire hadn’t covered her slip out well, she had trespassed into dangerous territory and failed to cover her tracks, around Luce Hamza of all people. Luce could never begin to understand the complexity of the situation, and to try to explain it to her involved giving away deeply guarded secrets, so that — 

  “So how does this whole thing relate to me having a lighter core?” Luce’s interruption was, for once, a welcome distraction.

  “You’re young. And inexperienced in the magical sense, so your core would be naturally lighter than an older wizard, who had performed a variety of spells over his life.”

  Luce didn’t look happy with that.

  “I just wanna visit Missy man. And you’re saying the imperius curse will help my cause, and now it won’t and I have to do theory. I don’t wanna do theory. I just wanna play with my dog.”

  Claire banged her head against the table. “That is not — how is that all you have taken from this conversation?”

  Luce stuck her bottom lip out as far as it would go and pulled large, puppy-dog eyes.

  “Fine.” Claire banged her head twice more against the table and groaned. “Let’s go see Missy.”

* * *

  Finding Missy was a surprisingly easy task. Claire supposed she was an abnormally large, three-headed dog, who had previously responded with some kind of positivity to their visitation, but the forest was still a large one. Claire had not expected it to be as easy as it was.

  Nor did she predict how many times Luce would drag her out to the very forbidden forest to visit their very forbidden dog. After every Quidditch practise (“We’re out here anyway!”), and almost all day every weekend. That on top of all their scheduled classes and school work, and all the bonus studying they were doing (which of course, Claire had to fight Luce on, every single time), meant that Claire was rapidly becoming — once again — very sleep deprived. Existing on minimal hours of sleep might have been alright for insomniac Luce, but was not okay in Claire’s books.

  Besides, walking around the castle while sleep deprived and with therefore duller senses was one thing, walking around a highly dangerous forest with many creatures wanting to ruthlessly slaughter and eat them alive at any signs of weakness, was another entirely.

  Luce would, of course, not listen to reason. Their visitations continued with an increasing frequency that Claire was none too pleased about.

  “I don’t know why you’re complaining so much.” Luce swung the Beater’s bat she’d ‘briefly borrowed’ from Quidditch practice without a care. “You love Missy deep down in your brooding evil little heart.”

  Claire ducked a low-hanging branch. “I would probably love her more if she hadn’t tried to eat me .”

  And if Claire actually got to sleep through the whole night, just for once. And if this hadn’t caused her to start falling asleep in class because classes were always ridiculously early.

  “That was last year.” Luce dismissed. “She was fine today.”

  “She almost killed me last year. Painfully.”

  “Water under the bridge.”

  “What?”

  “Let it go!” Luce smacked a branch out of the way with her bat. Something flew into the sky, shrieking.

  “You need to keep your voice down.” Claire jumped back as something small ran across the ground right in front of her, shaking the nearby bushes threateningly.

  “What, are you scared of all the big scawy cweatures?” Luce jeered. “The big ol’ scawy cweatures that wanna eat a tasty little morsel of a girl named Claire Belstring?”

  “Stop it.” Claire swatted at Luce’s arm.

  Luce grabbed Claire’s wrist before she could pull away and grinned a huge, unsettling grin with wide, mad eyes. “ I’ll eat you. Nom nom.”

  “Stop it!”

  Something rustled in the bushes near them. The sunlight felt like it had entirely disappeared within the minute, casting menacing, almost writhing shadows on the ground. Luce’s grip felt bruising on Claire’s wrist, like Luce was yet another danger Claire had to add to the list of things that could kill her.

  “Nom nom.” Luce said again, baring her teeth and pulling Claire closer.

  The bushes rustled again.

  “Let me go!”

  “Nom nom!”

  Claire tore her hand free. Luce looked like Christmas had come early, the trees throwing unsettling darkness across her figure, making her look more demented and dangerous.

  “Has my little prey come to play?” Luce crooned. “Nom nom come back!”

  Luce lunged forward. Claire bolted.

  A stupid decision, upon reflection, to run. Luce delighted in chasing things down, and Luce was a thousand times faster than her. Claire could never outrun her.

  They were, however, still in the forbidden forest, a place that was remarkably easy to get lost in. Or to lose a pursuer.

  “Nom nom don’t run!”

  Because Luce hunting her down like she was a serial killer was going to make Claire want to, in any way, shape or form, stop running and surrender to her fate.

  Claire started swerving through the trees. She had no idea where she was in the forest, but she had her wand and knew a few minimal tracking spells that should get her out of there.

  Luce could fend for herself. And considering she had been their main navigator — something about her military father teaching her valuable life skills because magic couldn’t always be relied upon — she would probably have better chances of reaching the castle first anyway.

  Wonderful.

  “Nom nom, I’m so lonely without you.”

  Luce’s voice sounded unnervingly close.

  “You didn’t really think you could escape, did you?”

  Claire whirled around and had yelled “Flipendo” before she fully processed that it was her friend who maybe wouldn’t kill her that was lunging at her and not a ravenous beast.

  Though, Luce and a ravenous beast really weren’t that different after all.

  Luce crashed backwards into the same bush she had erupted from. “Hey!” She yelled, creepy serial killer voice temporarily vanishing in her indignation. “Using magic isn’t fair, you know I can’t do that!”

  “It’s a great motivator, then.” Claire retreated backwards, eyes fixed on the half-blood who (thankfully) didn’t seem too injured. It would be a pain in Claire’s ass later if she had accidentally hurt Luce. “To learn magic. Besides you’re more athletic than me, this was never a fair fight in the first place.”

  “Fight?” Luce asked, creepy grin returning as she fought her way free of the bush. “I just want a taste of your pretty flesh. Nom nom.”

  “No.” Claire had resorted to magic now. She may as well continue the trend.

  She slashed her wand through the air. “Ligare!”

  Luce ducked. “You missed.”

  Claire grinned as the bush behind Luce shuddered under the impact of her spell, emitting a faint green glow and groaning under the pressure of the rapid growth of its branches.

  “Did I?”

  Luce yelped as the branches yanked her back, engulfing her in a leafy embrace.

  “Oh you are SO dead when I catch you!” She shouted as Claire waved and sprinted away.

  The spell wouldn’t hold forever. It wouldn’t even hold for long. Claire was surprised it held Luce long enough for her to make it to the castle.

  She slowed down when she made it inside. Total safety was close, but her footsteps were loud now, against the stone floors. Too loud. It would give away her position faster than she could get to safety.

  She couldn’t hear any other footsteps, but that didn’t mean she was alone. It was past curfew, so she shouldn’t see any crowds of students she could hide amongst, but the professors and prefects would be patrolling corridors. Claire had swapped out hiding from blood thirsting monsters to hiding from detention-giving professors.

  And Luce. Always Luce.

  Claire was lucky tonight, though. Corridor after corridor passed by without seeing any soul — living or dead. There were a few ghosts who would rat her out to the professors. She had to avoid them too. It was much harder to avoid something that could pop out of the walls without any warning whatsoever, but Claire was managing her lone trek through the castle.

  Everything was beginning to work out okay, so naturally something had to go wrong.

  Claire saw the silhouette of a person and retreated back behind the corridor wall again. She pressed her back against the cold bricks and exhaled shakily. It hadn’t looked like they had seen her, whoever they were. She hadn’t really seen them either. Not a ghost, she could tell that much. So a professor or Luce. But they hadn’t looked particularly tall.

  Claire blew out a slow breath. She was fairly sure — through the process of elimination — that the mysterious stranger was Luce.

  Or another student. The thought was possible , but far too optimistic.

  For perhaps the millionth time that day, Claire wondered why she was friends with a psychopath like Luce.

  Claire peeked around the corner, every muscle tensed and ready to flee at the slightest sign of danger.

  It wasn’t Luce. Unless Luce had dyed her hair, or maybe covered it in the last fifteen minutes. The figure in question did not have blonde hair. Darker, maybe brown or red — it was hard to tell in the dim light — but definitely not blonde.

  And it wasn’t a professor either. Or at least, she (it was a she, Claire decided) didn’t look like one.

  The mystery girl was facing the wall, one hand raised. Claire’s eyes tracked up and her breath quickened. The girl was writing on the wall, it seemed, large jagged foot-long letters written in something that looked horrifyingly like blood in the flickering candlelight.

  The Chamber of

  Something grabbed Claire’s wrist and twisted it behind her back. A hand covered her mouth, silencing her scream and effectively holding her captive, dragging her back with an ease that made Claire’s desperate attempts for escape seem pitiful and futile.

  Claire’s captor dragged her into an abandoned classroom with a door that closed with a soft click. Claire felt a breath raise the hairs on the neck as her captor leaned close and whispered, “Nom nom.”

  Claire fell to the ground when Luce released her grip, spluttering. “Luce!”

  Luce grinned widely as she pointed her wand at Claire. “Payback time. Flipendo. ”

  Claire threw up her hands to shield her face like that would be of any use against the Knockback Jinx.

  A second passed.

  Luce cursed. “I practiced on the way here, why isn’t it working now?” She pointed at a table. “Flipendo.”

  The table flew backwards with a loud clatter that anyone in the surrounding corridors would hear.

  And there was someone right outside. Someone Claire did not want to meet, alone and in the middle of the night.

  “AHA!” Luce, oblivious as always to potential life-threatening danger, grinned widely as she turned her wand back at Claire.

  “No no no, shhh.” Claire sprung up and hurried over to Luce, covering her mouth and looking at the door frantically.

  “Oh you are not — ” Luce started furiously, ripping Claire’s hand away from her mouth.

  “SHH!” Claire begged, fighting to cover Luce’s mouth again. “Listen!”

  Luce looked like she wanted to strangle Claire with her bare hands, but she allowed five seconds of compliance.

  Soft footsteps slowly clucked closer. Claire’s eyes widened as the locked door handle rattled.

  “There was someone — ” Claire breathed, trembling. “Writing … with blood on the wall — ”

  Luce’s cocky frustration vanished. She pushed Claire’s hand away from her face again, but held her wrist firmly.

  Claire looked at her desperately.

  Luce pressed a finger to her lips and looked around the classroom.

  The doorknob rattled again, more insistently this time.

  “Luce.” Claire begged in a voice below a whisper.

  Luce glared her down, looking more serious than she’d ever looked. She pressed her finger against her lips again, more jerkily this time, then pointed at a floor length tapestry.

  Claire stared at her. Luce gave her an angry kind of disappointed face and dragged her over to the tapestry that would in no way hide both girls successfully.

  “It won’t — ” Claire started.

  “Shut.” Luce hissed, with so much authority in one syllable that Claire didn’t think twice about following her instructions.

  The person outside banged on the door without warning. Claire almost jumped out of her skin. They banged a few more times, then returned to rattling the doorknob, except they didn’t stop this time.

  Luce’s face was grim as she pushed the tapestry aside, revealing a dark, cobwebbed tunnel that no one had dared to step foot in for a hundred years.

  Luce jerked her head towards the tunnel in a clear get in motion. Claire stared from the cobwebs to Luce in despair.

  The doorknob stopped rattling abruptly.

  “There is a spell.” A young female voice murmured from outside.

  Luce shoved Claire inside. She stumbled backwards, cobwebs getting in her face, skin, hair. Luce climbed into the tunnel, then fixed the tapestry, closing off all light and plunging them into the thickest darkness Claire had ever experienced.

  A hand gripped Claire’s again and she nearly screamed.

  “Stay very still.” Luce’s voice was barely audible, lips an inch from Claire’s ear. “Get ready to run, but she’ll hear us if we do now.”

  Claire found Luce’s arm and squeezed it tightly, pressing herself as close to her friend as humanly possible.

  The door banged open and both girls flinched.

  There was a pause. Then footsteps. Light, almost confused … or maybe hunting.

  They came closer. Luce’s grip cut off the circulation in Claire’s wrist.

  A pause stretching for what felt like a million years.

  “I do have a job to do.” The female voice sounded both distant and bone-chillingly close, and both timid and unwavering.

  “Of course I will do what I am to do.”

  She sounded almost airy and … possessed . That was what it sounded like — that kind of responding to a command only she could hear without a thought of her own, wholly consumed by a force puppeteering her. It was something Claire associated with the imperius curse, but there were other ways of possessing a person, all of them dark, horrible deeds by a force much greater than that which belonged to a school.

  Claire’s own grip tightened on Luce’s arm, but the possessed girl didn’t move the tapestry. She turned and walked out of the classroom, slamming the door closed once again as she left.

  Claire physically deflated in relief and released her death hold on Luce.

  Luce’s grip tightened on her wrist again. “Wait.” She muttered.

  Claire didn’t know what she was waiting for, but she knew better than to ask.

  Another million years passed before Luce shifted, burning a small hole in the tapestry to peer through. Claire couldn’t see anything, but Luce must have been semi-satisfied with what she saw, because she shifted the entire tapestry to poke her whole head out from behind it.

  “Clear.” Luce murmured, stretching out in a fluid movement to leave the tapestry tunnel. She held the passageway open to let Claire out.

  “Who was that?” Luce asked quietly.

  “I don’t know.” Claire looked out the door anxiously. “A — a student I think, I didn’t get a good look before you dragged me in here. She was — she was writing on the wall. With blood I — I think. With blood. And I — ” She swallowed. “I mean she sounded kind of — sounded possessed.”

  Luce’s face was impossible to read.

  “Well there’s only one way to find out.” She said quietly. Before Claire could even process what was happening, Luce was striding silently over to the door and opening it.

  She was gone before Claire could stop her.

  “No!” Claire hissed, “Luce!”

  She couldn’t raise her voice. Luce had left too quickly, was too far to hear her. She couldn’t let Luce face whatever that was alone.

  Claire snuck out the same way Luce had gone, the same way the mystery potentially possessed girl had gone.

  The girl was where she had been before, but she had painted more letters.

  The Chamber of Secrets has been opened

  Luce was standing at the edge of the wall, watching, poised, ready to spring into action at any sign of danger.

  She looked over at Claire’s movement outside and made an urgent face at her. Claire scampered over to join her, trying to make as little noise as possible.

  “What are you doing?” Claire whispered.

  “What are you doing?” Luce fired back.

  “Making sure you don’t get yourself killed.”

  The girl’s brush strokes slowed. Luce and Claire fell silent instantly.

  “I thought …” The girl started. “No. I am alone. Except for you. I will continue.”

  She resumed her work, painting her threatening message on the wall with what Claire dearly hoped wasn’t blood.

  Claire looked at Luce and opened her mouth.

  Luce covered it, shaking her head fiercely. “Wait.” She mouthed.

  The girl’s brush strokes were slow and deliberate.

  Claire didn’t know how it could possibly be the same night that had started with Luce dragging her to yet another dismal Quidditch practice. There had to have been three occasions now when she swore a million years had passed. She supposed in reality, it couldn’t have been more than a couple of minutes, but it felt like multiple lifetimes before the girl stopped again.

  The possessed girl took a step backwards maybe, and chanted a spell Claire had never heard of. Something in the air changed and the wall Claire and Luce was hiding behind trembled slightly. Something near the girl seemed to hiss and dust — Claire hoped it was just dust — billowed out into the corridor, bringing with it an indescribable feeling , something ancient and powerful and unmistakably on the spectrum of dark magic. Not the darkest Claire had felt, but darker than what was taught in this school. Something no student, especially one that looked and sounded like they were in Claire’s year or younger, should be capable of.

  Luce flattened both herself and Claire against the wall as the girl stepped closer to their corridor. There wasn’t enough warning nor time to retreat back to the classroom. They could only watch as who Claire could now identify as the girl Weaselbee walked past, trancelike and without looking back, praying the shadows were dark enough to hide their existence.

  Weaselbee didn’t look back, and her footsteps quickly faded into nothing.

  Luce held Claire against the wall with one hand as she checked the coast was clear before turning to stare at the wall’s writing.

  Or the lack of it.

  Claire rejoined her side.

  “Where did it go?” Luce whispered.

  Claire reached out to touch the wall, fingers hesitating inches away from the stone. It looked the same, but … not. Chips and cracks in the wall had vanished, like they had never been there in the first place. The graffiti’ed names of a couple etched into the wall years ago had disappeared.

  “Did she cover it?” Luce asked uncertainly.

  Claire looked up. The large crack near the ceiling was still there, but there was something wrong with it. It didn’t reach the same torches it had before.

  Claire took a step back. The wall didn’t have any torches. The crack was inverted, like they were looking at it from the other side. Like they were looking at the wall from the other side.

  “It’s been flipped.” Claire said numbly.

  “What?” Luce exclaimed.

  Claire stepped forward again, fingers grazing stone that hadn’t seen the light of day since Hogwarts had been built. The castle was maintained by magic, so the walls they saw every day weren’t crumbling or discoloured by any means. But these stones now were unmistakably different; muskier, like they had spent centuries in the shadows, gathering dust and mildew.

  Even as Claire watched, the castle’s magic seemed to sense the wrongness of the exposed wall, chipping away at the stones, freeing them of any noticeable blemishes.

  “Claire.” Luce pointed upwards in horror. Dust, prickled with the ancient magic of the castle, seemed to swirl against the wall, whistling hauntingly.

  Claire whipped her hand away like she had been burnt, and staggered back a few steps. She and Luce both stared as the dust settled, leaving behind torches spawned out of thin air and replicating the ones left behind.

  “How?” Claire asked, voice small and strangled.

  Luce just stared at the wall.

  Claire stepped back, head swivelling around to look at all possible entrances and exits around them. “We need to leave. Right now.”

  “No nom nom’s tonight.” Luce whispered.

  Claire didn’t have the energy to react.

Chapter Text

  All of Claire’s plans for sleeping in half the morning were shattered. Not only was it incredibly difficult to get to sleep with the turmoil of a disappearing wall, but Luce had jumped on her bed.

  “You scream really loud.” Luce rubbed her ear and looked at Claire in annoyance.

  “You — ” Claire collapsed back onto her bed and ripped the pillow out from underneath her head to smush it over her face.

  “That doesn’t muffle anything, you know.” Luce poked Claire’s exposed shoulder. “I can still hear you yelling.”

  “Fuck you.” Claire grumbled into the pillow.

  “And swearing.”

  Claire slammed her pillow down to glare at Luce, who was wearing a shit-eating grin.

  “I hate you.” Claire told her, giving up on any idea of sleep and pulling herself up into a sitting position instead of the more vulnerable laying down one.

  “No you don’t.” Luce stole Claire’s favourite blanket to wrap herself in.

  “Hey!” Claire protested, reaching out for the green silk.

  “Nuh uh.” Luce swatted her hand away. “I’m stealing this. Compensation for emotional damages.”

  “Emotional — ” Claire groaned. “You’re impossible. I want that back.”

  “We’ll see.” Luce buddled herself up in her stolen blanket and grinned. “This is comfy, I like it.”

  “I like it too.” Claire grumbled, trying half-heartedly to tug it back again.

  “No.” Luce smacked her hand away.

  Claire sighed. “What do you want? Other than to be a pain in my ass?”

  “I’m a pain in your ass?” Luce gasped dramatically. “That’s crazy!”

  Claire looked at her.

  Luce’s grin faded. “What do you think’s gonna happen?”

  Claire frowned. “With what?”

  “That disappearing wall act.” Luce said, with a ‘duh’ expression and a tone that suggested Claire was an idiot for not jumping to that conclusion, despite nothing in their conversation whatsoever relating to the appropriately named ‘disappearing wall act’.

  “Something.”

  Luce snorted. “Oh, wow something . It’s so — it’s so marvelous and enlightening . You know Claire — you know I really think you might be onto something here. I mean, move along Sherlock, there’s a new miracle detective in — ” Luce’s overly sarcastic rant ended in a scream as Claire shoved her off the bed.

  “I’ve heard of the Chamber of Secrets. And if it’s been opened again it’s nothing good.”

  “Nothing good!” Luce gasped. “Detective, I am in complete awe of your sleuthing skills.”

  Claire looked down on her with disdain. “Must you feel the need to criticize everything I say?”

  “Must you feel the need to look down on me?” Luce mocked right back.

  “For a person of your stature, it would be impossible not to.”

  “Ohhh, right back to the blood status argument again, are we? You know, every time I think you’ve changed or I’ve gotten through to you — ”

  “Stature.” Claire interrupted hastily. “Not — not status.”

  Luce stopped speaking long enough to glare at her, eyebrows scrunching together in a go on message. “I fail to see how those are different.”

  “Stature means height, Luce. It has nothing to do with blood status.”

  Luce considered this for a minute, eyes narrowed.

  “Wait, you were mocking my height?”

  “Mocking is different from simply pointing out the fact that I am taller than you and thus look down on you to meet your eyes. Have more faith in me.”

  “Hmm.” Luce jumped back onto Claire’s bed and re-wrapped herself in Claire’s blanket that had fallen loose in the scuffle. “So you said you heard about this chamber thing before?”

  Claire wanted to press the issue. Luce had looked and sounded angry, and had been so quick to defensively jump to the conclusion Claire was mocking her status, that Claire thought she was below her because her blood was less pure. And it was , but the certainty of that thought felt more … thin. And cruel, almost like it was objectively wrong.

  “Um, the chamber, yes.” Claire rubbed her head as if she could pry the confusing, conflicting thoughts out and hurl them away. “I don’t know that much about it.”

  “So you’re useless.” Luce groaned, rolling over on her back to glare at the ceiling.

  “Thanks.” Claire said dryly. “I know a few things, but I guess since I’m so useless you don’t wanna hear it.”

  Luce immediately rolled back over and poked Claire’s leg. “Tell.”

  When Claire didn’t immediately respond, Luce continued poking her, chanting, “Tell. Tell. Tell. Tell.”

  Claire squealed and, in an attempt to escape the insistent poking, successfully rolled herself off the bed and thudded on the floor.

  She groaned.

  Luce burst into laughter.

  Claire poked her head up to glare at her friend. “You suck .”

  “Looks like I have a higher statue now!”

  “It’s stature .”

  “That’s what I sa-aid .”

  “No, it’s no-ot.”

  Luce poked Claire’s head. “You’re being annoying, Miss I-Know-Things-About-The-Chamber-Of-Whatever.”

  “Chamber of secrets .” Claire corrected, batting Luce’s hand away and climbing back onto her bed. “Yes. It’s been opened before, that I know. But it’s all been hushed up, I think the last time it happened was like, a century ago and no one wants to talk about it.”

  Luce groaned. “Why are you guys so obsessed with not talking about things? It’s getting old.”

  Claire rolled her eyes.

  “On a scale of one to everyone in this school is gonna die, how dangerous is this thing?” Luce asked.

  Claire bit her lip. “An eight, maybe a nine?”

  Luce looked startled. “Really?”

  Claire nodded slowly. “I think someone died last time.”

  Luce was quiet for a moment. “Okay. Died how?”

  Claire shrugged. “Attacked. Some kind of monster only one person could control that targeted …” She faltered.

  “Targeted … ?” Luce prompted. “Targeted who? Women? People of a race other than white?”

  “Muggle-borns.” Claire pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes.

  “Wow, I should have known.” Luce’s fatal sarcasm almost made Claire flinch.

  “Yeah.” Claire winced. “But uh, you’re not one and I’m not one, so if we keep our heads down and be careful, we might avoid any trouble.”

  “Aw hell naw.” Luce shook her head. “We’re going straight back to that wall and looking for clues.”

   “No. No!” Claire gasped as Luce jumped up from her bed. “Luce!”

  Luce dashed over to the dormitory door before Claire could grab her. “Just a little look.”

  “I just told you they are dangerous and killed a person and you immediately want to go back there?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Luce Hamza do not open that door or I swear to — GOD DAMMIT.”

  Luce not only opened the door, but waved and grinned tantalizingly as she exited through it, leaving with only a taunt of “Come with me, you pussy” after her.

  Claire clenched her fists and cursed under her breath before jumping up and chasing her friend.

* * *

  Claire’s idea of a Halloween well spent was, as surprising as Luce may find it, not spent sniffing around a rotating wall of doom (that hadn’t changed since last night, nor in the hours spent pacing in front of it). It wasn’t spending hours with a hysterically crying ghost either, especially when that hysterically crying ghost had them ‘stand guard’ outside her bathroom because she thought she heard something outside the previous night and didn’t want to be alone, but refused to further elaborate when questioned.

  “I can’t stand this much longer.” Claire muttered. Moaning Myrtle wailed from somewhere inside the bathroom on cue.

  “She might have information.” Luce protested. 

  “We have been here for hours , Luce, if she had information to give us, she would have by now.”

  “She’s been crying half the time.”

  “And you think she’s going to stop anytime soon? We’re too close to the wall and I don’t wanna be here when more shit goes down.”

  “Well, I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

  “Luce, we are going to get hurt! We are right there, do you see anyone else ?!”

  Luce, clearly refusing to let Claire win an argument, purposefully strode down the hall.

  “You’re not going to find anyone.” Claire mumbled, half-heartedly trying to protest Luce’s movements.

  She rounded the corner and crashed straight into Luce.

  “Couldn’t have given me any warn — ”

  In the span of less than a second, Luce turned and grabbed Claire around the shoulders, almost strangling her with one arm while muffling her scream of shock with the other hand, dragging her back across the corridor.

  “Shut.” Luce hissed, like the near death grip she had on Claire’s face could give her any room whatsoever to make a sound.

  Claire tried to scratch at Luce’s arms in a desperate attempt to free herself.

  Luce hit her shoulder. “Stop it.”
  Claire dragged Luce’s hand down. “Can’t breathe.”

  Luce put her hand back up to cover Claire’s mouth again, but she didn’t rip Claire’s face apart this time, so Claire reluctantly counted it as a mediocre win.

  That concern vanished the second she heard their resident posessee’s voice.

  “A sacrifice … we need a sacrifice to wake the monster …”

  Claire could hear footsteps now, gradually stumbling closer. Her eyes darted around frantically for an escape route, and landed on Myrtle’s shadowy, half flooded bathroom.

  She tapped Luce’s arm and pointed.

   Their shoes made soft splashing sounds when they walked through the flooded bathroom, but the door closed relatively quietly and they were out of the way of the possessed Weasley girl.

  “Get away from the door.” Claire grabbed Luce’s arm and dragged her further.

  “I want to hear — ” Luce protested.

  Claire’s rebuttal died on her lips when the door handle rattled.

  “Again?!” Luce hissed under her breath as Claire dragged her into the nearest toilet stall.

  “Beautiful sacrifices to wake the monster.” The possessed singing was a whole new level of disturbing, especially when it was followed by inhumane hissing, snarling and mechanical whirring.

  One minute passed. The whirring started up again.

  Two minutes. Then three.

  Claire peeked through a crack in the door. The girl had vanished into thin air.

  “We need to get out of here.” Claire whispered, death gripping Luce’s wrist. “Quick.”

  It felt as if the bathroom had transformed into the Forbidden Forest. Twisted porcelain replaced the dense brush, looming trees formed cracked sinks. The feeling of being hunted, watched , stunk the air, like her last minutes of life were being observed discompassionately.

  Claire had never been more grateful for something in her life than to be out of the bathroom and multiple corridors away.

  “Do you think we should warn somebody?” Luce whispered.

  Claire shook her head. “With what proof?”

  “We have to do something.”

  “Do something about what?” A sharp voice rang across the hallway and made Claire and Luce jump half a mile into the sky each.

  Professor McGonagall was standing ten feet away from them, eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  “About — ” Luce started.

  “The feast.” Claire interrupted, stepping on Luce’s toes quickly. “We’re going to be late.”

  “You are.” McGonagall agreed clipply. “I hope you’re not planning a disturbance, Miss Belstring?”

  “No, we — ” Luce tried again.

  “We would never do such a thing.” Claire kicked Luce again, then smiled weakly at the Transfiguration professor. “I mean, after last year, it would be nice to have a proper feast.”

  McGonagall had never looked less worried for trouble. “Miss Belstring, is there a troll we need to worry about?”

  Claire viciously shook her head. “No! Not that I know of. Have you seen a troll, Luce? I haven’t seen a troll. I hope there’s not a troll. Should we be worried about a troll, Professor, is that a regular thing or was that just a horror specialised for last year, because that thing was terrifying and I really hope we don’t have to — ”

  “Get to the feast.” McGonagall interrupted. “Now.”

  “Yes, Professor, right away.” Claire nodded her head and hurried forward a few steps, only to realise with blood-chilling horror that Luce hadn’t followed.

  “Professor, if you have a minute — ” Luce started.

  “Haha, but we don’t have a minute, or any minutes.” Claire rushed back to Luce’s side and seized her wrist again tightly. “We wouldn’t want to waste any more of our professor’s precious time for trivial things, you’ll find out if there’s really a skeleton band at the feast when we get there Luce, so we better, you know, get there . It was lovely speaking to you, professor!”

  Claire dragged Luce forward and waved cheerfully back at Professor McGonagall. “What were you thinking?”

  “What do you mean what was I thinking?” Luce hissed. “ You had never acted more like you’d just committed a crime than you had then. She knows something is up!”

  “Well you wouldn’t shut up — ”

  “People are going to get hurt — ”

  “Do you think that McGonagall of all people is going to take anything we say seriously?” Claire spat. “Anyone would have to be out of their minds to take our concern about a rotating wall and possessed Weasley seriously.”

  “Why? It’s not like it’s the craziest thing that’s happened in this school!”

  “How many times do I need to remind you we’re Slytherins and Weasley is a Gryffindor ?!”

  “We helped save the school last year.” Luce protested weakly, but even she knew it was a lost cause.

  “Uhh, no , we caused a nuisance last year.”

  Luce was quiet for the rest of the walk to the Hall, which didn’t do good for Claire’s nerves.

  “Hey.” Claire stopped Luce before she pushed the Hall door open. “There’s nothing we can do.”

  “I know.” Luce shrugged her away. “That doesn’t mean I like it.”

  She shoved the door open before Claire could say anything else.

  The feast looked roughly the same as Claire could remember it being the previous year, though the lights seemed brighter and the Hall more crowded and the people louder and the food more tasteless.

  McGonagall entered half an hour after Claire and Luce had. Claire watched as she muttered something to Dumbledore, who frowned in Claire and Luce’s direction.

  “They know something’s up.” Claire muttered into her goblet.

  “Well, shit, Sherlock, I wonder why.” Luce mumbled. “Couldn’t possibly be because you acted incredibly suspicious in a corridor that is soon to become a crime scene.”

  “We don’t know that.”

  “Oh, so you’re just going to ignore the ‘beautiful sacrifices to wake the monster’.”

  “Temporarily, yes, and I think you should too.”

  “If you can so easily ‘temporarily’ forget about it, why aren’t you enjoying yourself at the feast?”

  “Maybe it has nothing to do with that. Maybe I just think that it is an excuse for overconsumption and an overall frivolous event that overexerts the employment of Hogwarts’ house elves.”

  “House elves?”

  “Forget I said anything.”

  “Oh, like you want me to forget about the sacrifices and the monster and the possessed girl.”

  “I don’t see why you’re having such difficulty with it, you’re great at forgetting everything else.”

  “I have an excellent memory, thank you very much.”

  “Not for spells and lessons and survival instincts and — ”

  “Wow, you’re being really aggressive today. Couldn’t possibly be because of the — ”

  “If you bring up what we saw last night and today, I will hit you .”

  “You’re being impossible.”

  “ You’re impossible.”

  “I pride myself on it.” Luce made a face.

  Claire mimicked her face and scoffed.

  “What are you two fighting about now?” Daphne asked, casually throwing a hard-boiled lolly into her mouth and eyeing the two with keen interest.

  “Nothing.” Claire and Luce snapped in unison.

  Daphne pouted. “But it sounded so fun.”

  “It sounds like you should mind your own business.” Luce hissed.

  “Well, you’re boring.” Daphne looked at Claire expectantly. “Come on, Belstring. Ditch the halfie and join us.”

  Pansy looked over, intrigued. “Yeah, Belstring.”

  “Thanks guys.” Luce said sarcastically. “I’m feeling like a very valued member of our dorm.”

  Daphne shrugged. “Your stunt last year was impressive, but you’re still a half-blood.”

  “Alright, can we cut it out with the racism?” Luce snapped.

  “Well we weren’t talking to you .” Pansy sneered.

  “Enough, Pansy.” Claire rubbed her head. “It really doesn’t matter what Luce and I were arguing about.”

  “It matters a bit.” Luce muttered.

  Claire kicked her under the table. “Everything will be fine.”

* * *

  Everything was not fine.

  The Weasley girl had added another line of writing Claire hadn’t seen before last night. The fact that almost the entirety of the school was there made it difficult to read, but everyone was in so much shock that it made it easier for her and Luce to push their way closer to the front.

  To Claire’s only mild surprise, Potter, Granger, and their Weasley friend were standing underneath the jagged, foot-high blood words that now read,

  The Chamber of Secrets has been opened

  Enemies of the Heir, beware.

  It shouldn’t have even mildly surprised Claire that it was that trio that had ended up at the scene of the crime. Wrong place, wrong time, fitting for Potter’s gang. Although the fact that it was Weasley’s sister who had done it made Claire wonder if there was some kind of foul play in there. Seemed too close to home to be purely coincidental.

  The flooding from Myrtle’s bathroom had reached a puddle under the message. Mrs. Norris was dangling by her tail from a torch bracket, stiff, and eyes wide and unmoving.

  “Claire.” Luce whispered.

  “I know.” Claire’s eyes were fixed on the cat.

  “Enemies of the Heir, beware! You’ll be next, mudbloods!”

  Draco Malfoy needed to learn when to shut up. Especially when his shout attracted Filch himself.

  “What’s going on here? What’s going on?”

  Claire had thought of the initial scene as chaos. Perhaps her judgement had been impaired by the fear from the previous night and any lingering fear she still held, because the scene after Filch arrived was complete chaos. Before … it was just slightly crowded.

  “My cat!” Filch shrieked, clutching his face in horror. “My cat! What’s happened to Mrs. Norris?” His eyes landed on Potter. “ You! You! You’ve murdered my cat! You’ve killed her! I’ll kill you! I’ll — ”

  “Argus!” Dumbledore’s interruption made Claire pull Luce back into the crowd of faceless students.

  “What?” Luce mumbled.

  Claire only shook her head in response.

  There were teachers swarming the scene now. McGonagall, at least, would suspect them of being involved in this, and Claire didn’t want to be pinned as being anyway closer to the scene than they already had.

  “Come with me, Argus.” Dumbledore swept past the Gryffindor trio to detach Mrs. Norris from the torch bracket. “You too, Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, Miss Granger.”