Chapter 4 - W4

Flying class was to be held out on the lawn, and I wondered what sort of safety precautions they were going to take. Back in the States, even in a hellhole like Winslow they were very cautious about the risk of injury from school activities for fear of lawsuits.

I wasn't worried for myself. Despite my body's weakness, I'd flown before, on the back of a giant beetle, and using a jetpack. I'd had some experience with this sort of things, but I was fairly sure that some of these kids wouldn't have.

All I saw was two lines of brooms, and a professor.

We lines up on one side, and the Gryffindors came a few minutes later. This was the first time that I'd had a chance to really get a close look at them outside of meals, and they were roughhousing with each other as they came out onto the lawn.

They were laughing and shouting at each other, and there was none of the quietness that I saw with the Slytherins. If they'd been in a restaurant, I'd have been tempted to put a fly in their soup.

I saw a dark haired boy in glasses staring at me, with a redhead whispering in his ear. They both stared at me unabashedly, not that their classmates weren't doing the same thing. The others, though at least pretended to look away when I looked at them.

It was three thirty in the afternoon, and the sky was cloudy and gray.

The Slytherins had wisely chosen the newer looking brooms. They'd tried to push me over to an old looking broom, but I'd made sure I got one of the better ones, and no one was willing to push me on the matter. I didn't like the look of some of the brooms the Gryffindors were using.

Neville waved at me and I nodded to him. One of the other Gryffindors whispered in his ear, but he shook his head and continued waving.

Good for him.

Madam Hooch barked at the Gryffindors to hurry up.

"Stick your right hand over the broomstick, and say UP," she said.

Willpower seemed to be a component to these things, and so I willed the broom to come up to my hand. It snapped upwards into my hand. I noticed that the same thing had happened to the dark haired boy and a few of the others, but most of them were having trouble.

Madam Hooch had them repeat it until everyone had control of a broom, and then she showed us how to mount it.

There should be some sort of safety mechanism, otherwise riding on a broom was suicidal folly. What happened if you slipped off, if your hands got slippery or if you got a splinter?

Most likely there were protective charms on these things, because otherwise, no one who wasn't suicidal would get on one.

She blew her whistle, and Neville shot up into the air. He was out of control; it was obvious, and quick look at Madam Hooch showed that she didn't have it under control. Her face had turned white, and she didn't have her wand out.

I didn't have a lot of options. Even when I'd been at full power my bugs couldn't have carried someone of his weight, and if I were to try to fly up and catch him, I doubted that my body would be able to hold him. Most likely we would both slip off out brooms.

That left magic, and there was only one spell that I had that would be useful.

I let my broom drop, I pulled out my wand, and I shouted, "WINGARDIUM LEVIOSA."

The levitation spell would not affect a human being, but it could affect clothes. Neville was at the upper limits of what I could probably lift with the spell, but if I could slow him down at least, then I might be able to save his life.

Grimacing, I saw him struggling as his clothes pulled tight, and his entire weight rested on them. The weight was distributed over his entire body, but I was still afraid that his clothes were going to rip, leaving him falling and nude. The broom dropped away from under him; it fell with a crash, shattering on the lawn below.

I let him drop, probably faster than I should have. I could hear a ripping sound from where I was. I dropped him heavily onto the lawn, and I saw him hyperventilating. It looked as though he was having a panic attack.

"That was well done, Miss Hebert," Madam Hooch said faintly. "I wasn't aware that Mr. Flitwick was teaching that spell on the first day of term."

"We haven't had his class yet," I said, dropping my wand. "I studied ahead."

"Ten points to Slytherin," she said. "I think I'd best take Mr. Longbottom to the infirmary to get a calming potion."

I noticed that she pointed her wand at him, and the bugs I had near him heard the sound of clothing repairing themselves.

She turned to the rest of us. "None of you will touch your brooms until I get back, on threat of expulsion."

With that, she was gone.

"Did you see his face, the great lump?" Malfoy said.

I could see the Gryffindors bristling, and it looked like they were spoiling for a fight. The last thing I needed was to have to hurt someone because we got into a brawl out onto the lawn. The older kids knew what they were doing, and deserved whatever I could do to them, but these were just kids.

"I don't need a broom to make you fly," I said testily.

His mouth snapped shut, and he paled.

The Gryffindors who had been about to say something stopped and stared at us with wide eyes. I noticed that the dark haired kid was staring at me more intently than the others. Was that a sign of intelligence, or did he need his glasses prescription changed?

Pansy Parkinson said, "You can't talk to him like that! Do you know who his father is?"

I turned and stared at her.

The color drained from her face, and she looked down at the ground. I nodded.

"After what just happened, anybody who even thinks about touching a broom is crazy. Forget about what the professor said. I don't know any healing spells yet, and it would be very easy to break your neck. I don't save idiots either."

"Who are you calling idiots?" the red haired kid shouted.

"Anybody stupid enough to get on one of these death traps without supervision. Personally, I'd be writing to your parents about the poor quality of the brooms here," I said. "Look at those things."

I pointed at some of the worst looking brooms. "My guess is that the spells on those things aren't working right, which puts all of us in danger. Isn't that what Malfoy should be writing his father about, since he actually has some pull at this school?"

Malfoy stared at me, then nodded slowly.

"Yeah, Malfoy," a boy whose name I didn't know said. "Isn't your Dad a bigwig here? Can't he do something about this?"

I could almost see Malfoy's chest swell at the attention. He nodded slowly, and then more enthusiastically.

"If you see something that should be changed, you go to people who can do something about it," I said. "If they can't do anything about it, then you do something yourself."

Malfoy picked something up off the ground. "He dropped this. What a stupid thing."

"What is it?" I asked.

"A Rememberall. It tells you that you've forgotten something, but it doesn't tell you what you've forgotten."

I frowned. "Well, I can see how that would be of limited usefulness. He probably didn't get it for himself, though. It sounds like the kind of thing parents force on us."

"He's being raised by his aunt," the redhead said defiantly. "Lost his parents in the war... hurt by you lot."

"Well, certainly not me," I said. "I'm from America, and even if I wasn't, I don't think anyone here was there during the last war."

"Their families then!" he said.

"So because there were people in their families who made some bad decisions, they should pay for it?" I said. "So you should have to pay every time one of your brothers plays a prank?"

I'd heard people talking about the notorious Weasley brothers. I wasn't sure which one this one was, but the line between pranking and abuse was very thin. Emma and Sophia and Madison had used the just joking excuse more than once, and teachers had bought it.

I was going to reserve judgment until I saw examples of what they were doing. Was it in actual good sport, or were they using it to humiliate and hurt people who were less powerful than them?

I'd have to convince them that it was important to punch up instead of down.

"You think I don't?" he asked.

"You want to be judged as your own person, don't you?"

"Yes....?" he said, sounding a little less hostile.

"So why not give them a chance? If they turn out to be bad people, then you can treat them the way bad people ought to be treated. If they turn out to be good people, then you've made a friend."

He scowled, and I heard mutters from all around me at the idea of being friends with Gryffindors or Slytherins.

It was barely at the end of the first day of school! How had they already brainwashed these kids into hating each other. It had to be the families who had gone here in the past; the muggleborns didn't know enough to know any different.

Undoubtedly they would learn, though, and then they'd pass it on to their own children.

"So you're saying we should all be friends?" the dark haired kid asked. Potter, the killer baby.

"Why not?" I said. "We'll have time to kill each other when we're older, but why should our parents' wars have anything to do with us.

"Easy for you to say," I heard Pansy Parkinson say. "You've got nothing to lose."

"That's true, and if people want to bring war to my doorstep, I'll be happy to oblige them," I said. "But I'd prefer not to have to kill anyone....yet."

All of their eyes were on me now.

"There are going to be people who try to pressure you into one side or the other. Some of them may be in your own families. But if you don't make your own choices, then you aren't any better than a house elf... a slave."

"What would a... muggleborn know about it?" Pansy asked. "You don't know anything about us!"

"Has anybody tried to tell me?" I asked.

The Gryffindors were looking at me like I'd grown two heads. House unity in Slytherin normally caused them to keep disagreements within house, leading the other houses to think that they all agreed with each other. I suspected that this was part of the reason that the other houses thought poorly of them.

Madam Hooch came rushing back to us, looking relieved that no one was up in the air. The rest of the lesson was rather tame after that. I caught the Potter boy looking rather disappointed. Presumably he'd wanted more acrobatics and horseplay, but as far as I was concerned, this class was already insanely dangerous for eleven year old children. Keeping it tame enough for a five year old seemed wise.

The day ended with a meal, and I headed for the library. I found Hermione there.

"I heard about how you saved Neville," she said excitedly. "I didn't think that the Levitation spell was supposed to be strong enough to lift an entire person."

"It almost wasn't. You need to talk him into losing some weight," I said. "Or learn how to fly better."

"They said you moved like lightning!" she said.

I shrugged. "I suspected something bad was going to happen, and so I was ready for it."

She lifted her notebook, and underneath I saw an entire box of matches. At my look, she flushed. "I wanted to get better at it before the next class. Do you want some?"

I nodded, and I spent the next hour transforming matchsticks into better and better needles. I found myself in competition with Hermione, odd as it was. I found that by changing my image of the needle, I could change other things about it.

By the time we were done, I had a pile of needles in front of me, and Hermione had a pile in front of her. My needles had gotten to be better and better metal over time, until they were indistinguishable from real needles. Hermione's by contrast, had gotten sharper and sharper.

I sensed Draco Malfoy hiding behind a bookcase.

"Can I help you, Malfoy?" I asked.

He stepped out from behind the bookcase, and he gave an uncertain look at the pile of needles in front of me.

"I'm getting ready for Halloween," I said pleasantly. I doubted that he got the joke.

"Can I talk to you?" he asked.

Glancing at Hermione, I said, "It looks like you are."

"Alone," he said.

I shrugged and rose to my feet. Turning to Hermione, I said, "If he goes missing, you didn't see anything."

For once she was quick on her feet.

"See what?" she asked.

Stepping two bookcases over, Malfoy took a deep breath and faced me. "Why did you do that today?"

"Do what?"

"With the brooms," he said. "Making me look good?"

"Did I do that?" I asked. I thought for a moment. "I've heard you bragging about your family in the common room. Do you really think anybody cares about that?"

He stared at me as though I was crazy. "My father is-"

"Not here," I said. "Most of these kids have never met him, and hopefully they never will. They've met you though."

"What do you mean?" he asked suspiciously.

"If I started bragging about what my muggle family accomplished, what would you think of me?"

"That you were an idiot," he said. "Who cares what your muggle family did? It's different among our kind..."

"It's not, though," I said. "People care about what you can do for them. That's it. They don't care how rich you are or how nice you are. They care whether you can make their life better."

He stared at me. "Right?"

"So what have you done for them to brag about?" I asked. "It's just the first day, so the answer is nothing. So you've got power and influence... use it."

"What?"

"If you get the school new brooms, then people will really believe that you have the kind of pull that you say you do."

"I'm not sure..." he began.

"How much do school brooms cost?" I asked.

He shrugged.

"Enough that your father couldn't easily afford twenty of them?" I asked.

He shook his head angrily. "Of course not! The Malfoys are one of the oldest, richest..."

"So you talk your father into it. Talk about how dangerous the brooms are, and how grateful the students' parents will be if he donates them to the school," I said. "It will solidify your position with people as the guy who can get things done."

He looked thoughtful.

"Nobody cares who your family is," I said. "But they care about what you can do for them."

He was silent for a moment, and then he nodded. "This doesn't mean that I can afford to be seen around you."

I shrugged. "Do I look like I give a damn?"

He glared at me, and a moment later he was gone.

Hermione stepped out from behind the stacks. I'd known she was there, of course, but it hadn't bothered me that she was listening.

"How could you say all that to him?" she asked indignantly. "About people only caring about what you can do for them?"

"It's true," I said.

"People aren't all greedy and.... money grubbing..."

"It doesn't have to be money," I said. "Maybe it's just that you make them smile. Maybe you make them feel good about themselves. Maybe you support them emotionally, or you are fun."

"You didn't say that to him," she said, mollified.

"He's not ready to hear it," I said. "It fits enough with his beliefs that he'll actually listen, and maybe take it to heart. Even if he doesn't, if the school gets better brooms, then we're all better off."

And maybe I wouldn't have to spend the next seven years hearing him brag about his family when he thought I wasn't listening.

"Why are you helping him anyway? He's a horrible person. He called me a mudblood on the train."

"He's been told that muggleborn are terrible his whole life," I said. "Do you think that meeting one is going to change that right away"

"Well... no... but..."

"It's going to take a while for him to change his mind," I said. "And the only way it's going to happen is if he meets muggleborns who challenge his preconceptions."

"It shouldn't be our job to teach him!" she hissed.

"That's true," I said. "But if not us, then who? Wizard society is full of people like him, and the only way we're going to change it is one heart at a time."

"You sound like my mom," Hermione muttered. "Sometimes you sound like an old woman in a kid's body."

I stiffened. Did she suspect something?

"But I guess maybe things are different in America?"

"Things were different back home, yes," I said.

"Do you miss it?" she asked.

"My family," I said. "But I try not to think about it much. I had friends back there too. Other than that...not really."

It was true. Brockton Bay had been a hellhole, and I'd been too driven about my work in stopping the Slaughterhouse and saving the world to really enjoy Chicago.

Hermione frowned. "Are you just telling me things that I can accept, because you think that I can't handle more than that?"

I put my arm around her shoulder.

"Would you believe me if I said no?"

"No."

"Good girl," I said. If I was right about what was coming, she needed to learn how to discriminate between lies and the truth, sooner, rather than later.1985ShayneTApr 2, 2019View discussionThreadmarks MailView contentShayneTApr 4, 2019#5,853The next two days passed relatively peacefully. I wasn't attacked in my bed, and while no one attacked me in the halls, no one went out of their way to associate with me either.

Even my roommates seemed afraid of me; I didn't associate much with them, instead focusing on my studies. The next attack might not come for a while, but I couldn't depend on that; it was going to happen sooner or later, and I had to come up with strategies for that.

The Gryffindors tended to stare rudely at me. The Slytherins pretended that I didn't exist. The Ravenclaws seemed slightly less afraid of me than the others, and I caught a couple of them whispering about asking me about the Levitation spell, although they never did.

Herbology was pleasant enough, and I could see the use for it. The Hufflepuffs didn't seem as dumb as the Slytherins kept whispering, but they also all seemed to shy away from me more than those in the other houses, so maybe they were a little less brave.

Apparently Hogwarts greenhouses were separated by the danger level of the plants inside. I approved of this heartily. Eleven year old children shouldn't be dealing with man-eating plants. However, I found myself interested in what exactly was in those more dangerous greenhouses. I suspected that some of them might be useful.

Sprout seemed to be a down to earth teacher. I wouldn't have any particular advantages in her class, but I doubted that I would need any. It struck me as one of the easiest classes, and hopefully the skills we learned there would translate to potions or one of the more useful classes.

Astronomy though seemed like a waste of time. We had class during the day, with labs by night once a week. I couldn't understand why we were supposed to study it; all the other classes had practical applications for becoming a functional Wizard. Astronomy... not so much.

There wasn't any magic related to it, and wands weren't necessary. It was basically just a science class. If it had been me setting a curriculum I would have replaced it with a mathematics class, or something It was all about learning the names of the stars and planets, and was pretty simple. Still, I felt I could be using my time more productively doing anything else.

Looking through telescopes that night was mildly interesting, but it didn't feel like something I should be bothering with. The fact that this was a class they expected us to take for years bothered me.

History of magic, though, made Astronomy look positively brilliant. It was interesting being taught by a ghost, for the first five minutes, but it was soon clear that he was a terrible teacher. He essentially read from the book in a monotone voice, and the only one taking notes at all was Hermione.

The problem was that it should have been one of the more interesting classes; it should have been like learning about capes in Winslow; a temporary bright spot in the middle of the day. Instead it was a terrible slog to get through, and while I wasn't falling asleep like some of the other students, I did find my attention wandering.

I found myself listening to the second year Charms class being taught down the hall. It was a lot of theoretical work that I didn't really have the background for, but it was a lot more interesting than listening to a lot of racist claptrap about the goblins.

Not that I loved goblins, but Binns really didn't seem to like them, and I couldn't understand why. There had been several goblin rebellions apparently, but the reasons behind them, once you looked past the Wizard propaganda seemed fairly sound.

Wands were apparently forbidden to the goblins, something they resented and with good reason. They'd been marginalized, and many of their career options had been curtailed by Wizard bigotry. It wasn't surprising that they rebelled every few decades.

The only surprise was that some enterprising Dark Lord hadn't promised them equal rights in return for their backing. He probably would have gotten it. Most likely, all of them had feared that doing that would have united their enemies against them.

I was happy to get out of History of Magic, and after listening to Flitwick teaching second years, I was already predisposed to liking him. Not only did he seem competent, but his class was actually useful.. Presumably this class, Transfiguration and Potions were the three classes that were the real meat and bones of what it was to be a Wizard. The other classes seemed to be less useful.

Stepping into the class, I saw the professor's head snap up. He was very short; about three and a half feet tall, which meant that I was only a foot taller than he was. He would probably look a lot smaller once I got taller.

I'd heard some of the Slytherins whispering that he was half goblin, and that it was a shame that he'd been allowed to teach at the school, but he actually seemed like one of the better teachers.

"Miss Hebert!" he called out. His voice was squeaky. "I heard about your outstanding use of the Levitation spell yesterday! We aren't even supposed to be teaching that spell until October."

"It seemed like one of the more useful spells," I said. "There were some other spells that I tried that I couldn't get to work."

"It's surprising that you got it to work at all," he said. "It requires a precise set of wand movements."

"I experimented with it," I said. "It didn't work at all with some of the other spells. Once I got it down, I practiced it over and over until I was able to do it every time."

"It will help once you learn the theory," he said. "And once you understand the reason that some wand movements work with some spells and not with others, it will get easier to learn some of the spells. We will be going over the theory of wand movements this year."

I nodded.

"If there's any books you can recommend to help me with self study, I'd be thrilled," I said. Getting on the good side of this professor was important, and he was so friendly it was hard not to like him.

If part of me felt a little suspicious because of it, I couldn't help it. McGonagall was strict, and Snape was an ass, but the kind of ass I could actually understand. Sprout seemed so harmless that it was possible that she was dangerous, bit she wasn't exactly in a position of power.

"I'll get you a self study list after class," he said. "I've already been asked for one by Miss Granger, so I've already got the list made up."

Trying to get ahead of me... how ambitious of her. Having him as head of house was going to give her a leg up with it too. I'd have to work hard to keep ahead of her; while I had the benefit of greater age and experience, those benefits would vanish as we got older.

I'd never been as brilliant as she was when I was her age. I only looked that way now from the outside because of being an adult in a child's body.

He clapped his hands. "It's wonderful that we have so many ambitious students this year... and muggleborns too."

"We've got to prove that the purebloods are wrong about us," I said. "Which means we have to work three times as hard to get the same credit."

He looked uncomfortable for a moment. "I'll be watching your progress closely."

I nodded.

Hermione stepped into the room, and we found our place at the front of the class. If I didn't have my bugs to give me eyes in the back of my head, I never would have sat with my back to everyone. It would leave too many opportunities for people to attack me from behind.

However, sitting at the front had benefits. It told people that I was confident that I could deal with anything they'd throw at me, and it put me close to the Professor, where they were more likely to see if something was done to me. That fact alone might keep people from doing anything in the first place, which was better than my having to retaliate.

The one thing I couldn't afford was for every day here to become a running battle. My ingenuity and skill had limits, and sooner or later I would fail. A reputation for infallibility was important. Every person that was too afraid to attack me was one more day for me to get stronger.

Eventually I'd be strong enough to not worry about anything except sleeping, and I'd read that there were spells designed to protect the bedchamber. It was likely that I'd have to get a lot better at magic to use them, which is why I was going to pay a lot of attention to charms.

Flitwick spent the first half of the session on theory; he explained everything in a rather simplistic style so that even the slowest of my classmates could understand what he was saying. I'd heard his second year lecture, which was much more complex, and so I knew he was dumbing everything down for the newbies.

Even so, taking notes with a quill was unpleasant.

I found myself resenting it more and more, and Hermione made it look easy. She'd explained to me that the Ravenclaws thought that Wizards required quills to be used because they helped the hand get used to the same types of movements as wands. I thought that explanation to be a little fishy.

More likely it was simple prejudice about adopting muggle technologies. I was essentially living among the magical Amish. Even if strong centers of magical power stopped electronics, as Hermione insisted, I'd seen wristwatches working on some of the muggleborn students. If clockworks worked, it was likely that ordinary pens or pencils would work just as well.

Using the quill made my hand cramp, and that made me irritable.

Thus once lunch came, I was sitting by myself at the table. Fortunately, the Ravenclaws and Slytherins tables were next to each other, and so Hermione sat as close to me as she could, and she occasionally called things out to me.

I felt some of my bugs begin to die, and I looked up. Owls were flying into the room, and some of them were snapping up some of my bugs as they went to land on the tables.

Pansy Parkinson had ostentatiously left a seat between me and her, but as an owl landed on my table, she looked over at me curiously.

It lifted it's leg at me, and I saw that it was carrying a letter in its claw. Snape had talked about my getting an owl, and I'd decided against it. The school had its own owls, should I need to send correspondence out, and I hardly needed a pet for some bigot to kill just as I became fond of it.

I shook my head and kept on eating. There was no one in the world who knew me, so most likely the mail wasn't going to be something I wanted to read. It was probably a death threat, or some sort of racist diatribe.

"You've got mail," Pansy said.

"So?"

"The owl comes, and you take your mail," she said. "You muggleborn are so stupid. Don't they have mail where you come from?"

"It's probably a bill," I said.

"What could you possibly owe?" she asked. "What, do you have a gambling habit?"

Did Wizards even have casinos? What could they possibly bet on that someone wouldn't use magic to cheat about? For that matter, were Wizards prohibited from winning at Muggle games? It might break Secrecy if every lottery winner was a Wizard, but access to a lot of muggle money would make even a Wizard's life better.

"Every day's a gamble," I said. "I'm still not opening that letter."

The bird hopped up and down and looked at me angrily. Finally it dropped the letter and flew off. The letter sat on the table, sitting in a pink envelope without any writing on the outside.

"When's the next time a muggle like you is likely to get a letter?" Pansy said. She scowled, "Fine, I'll open it."

She reached over and grabbed the letter before I could say anything. She opened the letter, and then frowned. She dropped it, and began scratching at her hands.

Boils began to sprout up on her hands and she screamed.

Looking over her shoulder, I saw that the letter simply said in big block letters, "You aren't wanted here, Mudblood."

I could see the professors rising to their feet, so I quickly stood up and away. If she was going to explode, I didn't want to be anywhere near her.

The other Slytherins seemed to be of the same mind, as those closest to us rose to their feet and quickly moved back.

Snape was the first to reach the table.

"Bubotuber Pus," he muttered. He looked at me. "What happened here, Miss Hebert?"

Was that some sort of Wizard Curse?

"Pansy opened my letter," I said. "I wasn't going to."

Snape pointed his wand at Pansy, and muttered some words I couldn't quite hear, even with my bugs. He seemed satisfied with whatever he saw, though.

He glanced at it, and scowled. He gestured to Gemma, and said, "Please take Miss Parkinson to the infirmary, and take care not to touch her hands."

Her hands were swelling up to the size of sausages. She was crying and wailing like it was the end of everything. I'd seen civilians menaced by Leviathan who made less of a production about it. Of course, most of them had been frozen by fear.

Snape pointed his wand, and a moment later the letter levitated to be placed in a bag that he either conjured or pulled out from somewhere inside his robes. He was careful not to touch it.

"Have Madam Pomprey check Miss Parkinson for curses more thoroughly," he told Gemma, who was helping Pansy to her feet. Pansy started wailing louder.

Hopefully she'd learn not to open other people's mail.

Learning to put curses on objects seemed like a really useful skill; maybe I could get Snape to show me what to study. I'd pretend that I was interested in learning about how to avoid cursed items, which of course I was.

I hadn't known items could be cursed. I had an uneasy feeling that it was an oversight like this that was going to end up causing me more trouble than anything I could anticipate or plan for.

"Curses are upper level subjects," Snape said. "Fifth year and above. You will not be ready to use them for some time yet."

Challenge accepted.

While Snape was seemingly refusing my obvious interest in curses, he was also giving me a clue as to who my attacker was. Essentially he was saying that it had to be a fifth year or above, possibly a gifted fourth year, or a professor.

While it was possible that the people who had killed my body had found out that I was here, I suspected that they'd have used something much more lethal. I would have expected that a professor would have been more lethal too; I couldn't see any reason for a professor to focus on me as a subject for attack.

Most likely it was an upper year Slytherin, and most likely a boy. The girls would have access to my room; if they'd wanted to trap something they could simply slip whatever they had used into my covers.

The boys, however were more limited... unless this was a statement, an attempt to show all the muggleborn what happens to mudbloods who thought too much of themselves.

Still, it was a risky play. It ran the risk of getting the professors involved, and while some of them might be sympathetic to the pureblood cause, the Headmaster certainly was not. The smarter thing to do would be to wait until I was alone and ambush me in a deserted hallway where no one could hear my screams.

Most children my age would be easily intimidated into keeping quiet, although surely not all. It had been one reason that I hadn't wanted an owl; owls could be easily killed or held for ransom.

Also, they ate bugs.

"Miss Hebert," Snape said. "I will be escorting you to the Headmaster's office."

I sighed and grabbed a chicken leg. I'd barely even gotten to eat.

"Pansy's going to be all right," I asked. "She's not going to explode?"

"I did not see any curses that would immediately endanger her life," He said. "I will, of course check on her once I have seen you safely to the Headmaster's office."

I nodded.

"While there are lethal curses that can be transmitted by objects, they are forbidden at Hogwarts," he said. He glanced at me, as though I was planning to immediately begin using them on the entire population of Slytherin.

As if...I was probably going to have to wait until at least next year before I got strong enough.

"And so they'd get in trouble if they'd used them?" I asked. "Not that it would bother me, since I'd be dead."

"Perhaps you should endeavor to stand out less."

"I'm like a mongoose in a nest of snakes," I said. "I'll never fit in, and I'm going to have to keep moving if I just want to survive."1826ShayneTApr 4, 2019View discussionThreadmarks PotionsView contentShayneTApr 6, 2019#6,174"Miss Hebert... where would you find a bezoar?" Snape asked.

"One of these?" I asked, pulling it out and holding it up. "In my pocket. If you are asking where they come from, it's the stomach of a goat."

I'd been given one by Dumbledore, supposedly because they warded off poisons. Asking me this question was most likely intended to tell my classmates that I was warded against poisons, which might make them less likely to try.

It might also simply make them try poisons that bezoars couldn't handle. Still, sending them a message that I was ready for whatever they brought might be worth the danger.

"And what is it used for?"

"Poisons," I said. "And keeping you alive."

Snape stared at me for a second. He glanced around the room at my classmates, who were all watching the both of us intently. The Ravenclaws and Slytherins were all very interested in what had happened.

"What's the difference between Monkshood and Wolfsbane?"

"They're the same plant, and they are almost as poisonous to the rest of us as they are to werewolves."

"And what would you use it for?" Snape asked.

"Some sort of stimulant potion," I said. "And the Wolfsbane potion."

"It is called the Wideye potion, Miss Hebert," He said. He turned to the rest of the class and nodded as he saw that everyone was taking notes.

"I am glad to see that not every student at this school is as foolish as a Gryffindor," he said. "However, you will find that my expectations are correspondingly higher in this class."

The entire class stared at him, with no one saying a word. He had a certain elegance of speech that made him mesmerizing when he wanted to be, and this particular group of kids were eating it up.

"Today we will be working on a boil curing potion. Recent events will make it clear why this is a necessary first step."

He turned and began writing the ingredients on the board.

I raised my hand.

"Yes Miss Hebert."

"Are there any steps that we need to watch out for so that the potion won't explode on us?"

Hermione had said that Neville had been forced to go to the infirmary with boils, which seemed... interesting. Presumably he'd made some sort of elementary mistake that had changed the entire nature of the potion, from one that cured boils, to one that caused them.

That might mean that every potion was like that. It might not, but it was an intriguing avenue to explore.

"Do not put the nettles in until after you take it off from the fire," he said. "Or you will regret it. A fool of a Gryffindor made that mistake yesterday."

I'd heard vague rumors that Neville had been injured in class.

I made a quick note. I looked up and saw him looking at me suspiciously. Did he think I was planning to make boil making potion? Possibly as a way to get back at the people who had attacked me?

Boils wouldn't be enough. Attacking in kind wasn't enough to be a deterrent. Although... dropping several boil making potions in their bath might be doable.

How diluted would that potion have to be before it didn't cause boils any more? I wrote this down in the margins of my notes. It might be something I would have to experiment with, not in my own bathtub, of course. I'd also have to find out about how to clean the solutions effectively.

Snape was watching me again.

He set us to measuring out nettles and crushing snake fangs.

As he came around to me and Hermione, I asked, "Is there any residual poison in these fangs?"

"There is only one species of venomous snakes in the British Isles," Snape said. "And we do not use their fangs for first year potions. Undoubtedly, half the class would nick themselves and end up in the infirmary. Crush the fangs more finely; you wish it to be the consistency of granulated sugar... something you should be familiar with as an American."

"At least we don't boil everything," I muttered under my breath.

He pretended not to hear me, and Hermione stared at me with wide eyes. I had a suspicion that she would consider talking back to a professor tantamount to throwing dynamite into the middle of class.

I was being unfair, of course. The food at Hogwarts was actually quite good, although I still couldn't understand how the students weren't all the size of actual whales. There wasn't any sort of physical education requirement, and every meal was a feast.

The students around me ate heartily too. It wasn't that they had some sort of supernatural restraint. Did magic require calories? Who would I ask?

Of maybe Hogwarts food was magicked to be non-fattening.

It seemed to work, whatever they were doing.

Snape seemed to have criticisms for everyone except Draco Malfoy, who seemed to preen. He looked at me triumphantly as his potion turned perfectly clear. My potion with Hermione was the second best out of the bunch, but it was still a little cloudy.

I suspected that there were some steps in the process that hadn't been adequately explained, and I could see that Hermione was frustrated, especially by the looks Draco was giving her. She was going to insist on getting every potion right.

I, on the other hand would be interested in getting them wrong. Unconventional potions, created through mistakes in the process would be devastating. This potion alone would be interesting, and it took almost no time to make.

The most difficult thing would be testing out the resulting potions. I might have been better off having class with the Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs if they were as stupid as Snape seemed to think; they'd probably have a lot of creative mistakes.

Of course, Snape seemed as prejudiced against the Gryffindors as the rest of the school was against the Slytherins.

I already knew who'd sent the letter. Bugs had senses of smell that were fairly acute; they used it to track down food. Different insects had different senses of smell, but bubotuber pus had a distinctive smell that all of them could identify.

Although the culprit had been careful not to touch any with his bare hands, he'd been around it enough that the scent had lingered on his robes. That was something my bugs could smell, although it wasn't something that I could take to Dumbledore.

I'd doubled my number of bugs I could control again; I could now control somewhere around two hundred and fifty. That would be enough to carry potion vials, although I wasn't sure that I wanted to risk revealing them to the world for something like this.

On the other hand, I might be able to get away with it if I was clever. Working on a distribution system might not be that difficult. I'd have to make sure that I was somewhere in public when it happened; if the people attacking me thought that I had co-conspirators, it would drive them crazy looking for them. They might tear themselves apart trying, which would keep them from focusing on me.

Was it worth the risk of my being discovered?

I suspected that Wizards probably had easy ways to deal with bugs if they knew about them. Once they knew that bugs were a large part of my arsenal, they'd get rid of them, probably using some kind of charm or shield I'd never heard about.

Still, hitting people with a sock full of galleons wasn't going to be enough to drive the people who wanted to hurt me off for long. I needed to send a message and I had to do it in a way that even the slowest of the Slytherins could understand.

Finally, I decided.

I needed the kind of uncertainty that this was going to create. I needed people to assume that I had someone protecting me, so that they'd spend more time trying to figure out who that was than attacking me.

"We should go talk to Neville," I said to Hermione.

Her eyes lit up. "He's probably still in the hospital wing."

I nodded. It was the right thing to do; it was the human thing to do. Also, I needed a better explanation of what had happened during his accident.

We went straight to the infirmary, where Neville was lying in bed. His face was still covered in boils, although they already were looking better than Pansy's hands had looked.

He looked up at us, and he smiled. "Hey."

Neville grimaced as the skin of his cheek pulled tight. Hermione patted his unblemished hand.

Parts of him were covered in boils, and other parts were clear. I tried to imagine what sort of splatter pattern had done this; how far did it extend, and how far I needed to be when I replicated his mistake.

He thanked me for saving him from a broken arm; I waved it off.

"What happened?" I asked.

"Professor Snape..." Neville said. "He's so scary. I guess I wasn't paying attention."

"The potion exploded?" I asked.

"It melted my Cauldron," Neville said. "Boiled out over everything. Professor Snape says I'm going to have to pay for a new one."

"I'm sorry that happened to you," I said. "Maybe Hermione can help tutor you in potions."

Hermione glanced at me quickly, but Neville grabbed her hand. "Would you?"

"I'm sure both of us would be happy to," Hermione said quickly, glaring at me.

At her angry look, I shrugged. Tutoring Neville would have kept her busy and out of my hair. Helping to tutor him might not be a bad idea. While it was possible that he was simply unlucky this first day, he seemed like the kind of person who might be clumsy in a class like potions, where small mistakes could cause big disasters.

Helping tutor him might actually give me special insights into exactly what mistakes he was making, and if there were useful ones, I'd be able to turn those to my advantage in ways that people might not expect.

The fact that his variation on the potion destroyed cauldrons was unfortunate. It meant that I needed to get multiple cauldrons, and I'd need to be careful about cleaning up as well.

I could steal some of the school's cauldrons, but I'd have to replace them eventually. It was possible that Wizards had magical versions of muggle forensics, so I'd have to be particularly careful. I'd use my spare wand for everything too. If it needed to be attuned anyway, I probably needed to practice with it.

We sat and talked with Neville until lunch. I did not receive any mail.

For the next two days, I went about my normal routine. I used my bugs to find out where the school cauldrons were, and I slipped in when no one was looking, and I clumsily picked the locks guarding them. Why anyone bothered I wasn't sure; there were magical ways to open locks available to anyone who wasn't me.

Stealing several cauldrons wasn't hard; levitating them through the hallways to an unused bathroom was considerably harder task given that the walls were covered in paintings. I had to give up a night's worth of sleep to pull that one off, which left me unreasonably cranky the next morning.

Apparently paintings slept when no one was around; whether that was an energy conservation method, or they simply slept because they thought they should, it didn't matter. What mattered was that I was able to levitate several pots within pots to the unused bathroom and hide them in the stalls.

I managed to brew the potions that very night, and if I hadn't been using bugs and levitation spells for the last part of it, I would have been in serious trouble. The explosion the first one made covered half the bathroom. It was a wonder that more of the students hadn't been injured.

In the end I managed to make six vials of my boil causing potion, and I spent the rest of the night trying to clean the bathroom. While it was unused in the middle of the night, getting rid of the smell and the burn marks on the floor was a lot harder than I'd thought it would be.

The cauldrons melted, and I managed to levitate them into buckets. Pouring them down a toilet proved to be a poor idea, and when I was done, the toilet was no longer working. However, I was able to keep the cause of the problem from being apparent.

I barely made it back in time not to get caught, and the entirety of the next day I was so exhausted that I could barely keep my eyes open. Having a teenager's body and stamina would have been much more convenient.

When I'd been a super hero, and then a super villain, I'd pulled all sorts of all-nighters. Now I found my self going to bed early, ignoring the whispers of my roommates.

Because I'd gone to bed so early, I was able to wake up early as well.

The boy who'd sent the pus had been one of the boys egging my attackers the first night. Geoffrey Avery was a pureblood, and he hadn't said anything about what he was going to do to any of his friends, at least not when I was close enough to listen.

It was simplicity itself for me to coat the insides of his bathtub with the potion. Experimentation with a less than friendly rat had showed that Neville's concoction was dangerous even when dry, and that if reconstituted it took time to work, but eventually would.

I went back to bed, and decided to sleep in. I was awakened to the sounds of screams.

Jerking awake, I saw that Millicent and Tracey were already up. They were staring at each other, wide eyes, and grabbing robes, they ran downstairs.

I took a little longer to get dressed. By the time I was done, Snape was already levitating a boy covered in a sheet down the boys stairs.

His hand and arm slipped out from under the sheet, and I saw that it was so covered in boils that it looked almost unrecognizable. Apparently six doses had been much too strong, even when dilute through an entire bathtub of water. Using three might have been enough, but I'd wanted to avoid underkill.

Snape looked at all of us.

"This stops now," he said. He sounded genuinely angry. "I am taking Mr. Avery to the infirmary, and when I am done, I expect the entire House to be in the common room."

With that, he was gone.

I saw several people openly staring at me, and I carefully kept my face neutral. Now that I thought about it, using an untested potion on a human being hadn't been the smartest thing I could have done. Why had I done it?

Was there something wrong with my brain? I hadn't been this impulsive since the last time I was eleven.

I fought to keep myself from scowling.

How could I make plans if I couldn't trust my own decision making? If my own brain was working against me, I wasn't sure what I could do.

Snape was back less than thirty minutes later.

"I thought we were done with this after last year," he said. "Fighting with the Gryffindors was bad enough. Fighting among ourselves?"

He shook his head.

"The other houses think that we are the villains, that every Dark Lord comes from among our ranks, and that because of that we cannot be trusted."

"Mr. Avery almost died tonight," he said. "He has boils inside his mouth and down his throat that crippled his ability to breathe, and it was only through my quick intervention that he survived at all."

Snape stared at me, but I kept my eyes straight ahead, my face expressionless. I kept my mind blank too, just in case.

"I would like to hear where everyone was when this all happened," he said.

The next thirty minutes was composed of questioning. Snape kept looking at me, and I kept my mind as blank as possible.

Finally he shook his head.

"Should Mr. Avery die, the aurors will become involved. At that point, my ability to intervene will be null and void."

The room was quiet. I saw some of the others looking at me, and it was clear that some of them wanted to throw out an accusation, but no one said anything.

"And Miss Hebert?" Snape said.

"Yes?"

"Detention," he said.

"What? Why?" I asked. My acting must not have been very good, because I heard a muttering coming up from the crowd.

"We will discuss that during your detention, which will begin on Monday."

I sighed and nodded.

In a way, he'd as much as outed me to the entire class, but given the way that Slytherins worked, it would only help my reputation. Maybe he wanted to quiz me on who my ally was, or maybe he didn't believe I had done it at all and simply wanted to throw whoever he thought the true culprit was off the scent.

I considered going back to bed for my first Saturday off, but my stomach told me that it was time to eat. For some reason, this iteration of me was much more concerned with food. If I wasn't careful I would get fat, especially because I hadn't worked out a way to keep running without becoming too visible.

The last thing I needed was for my enemies to be able to predict where I was going to be at any given time. Even my bugs couldn't watch everywhere, and I'd die just as quickly from a rock pushed off from one of the towers as anybody else.

Breakfast was my first priority, and then I was going to have to try more magic.1725ShayneTApr 6, 2019View discussionThreadmarks DetentionView contentShayneTApr 8, 2019#6,557"Professor Snape?" I asked.

Detention at Winslow had involved a bored teacher sitting at the front of the classroom while the students did their homework and tried to ignore the spitballs hitting the backs of their heads. I'd had detention on multiple occasions because of some scheme of Emma's.

This was the first time that I was going to a detention that I actually deserved, and I wasn't sure how it was supposed to go.

I'd spent the entire weekend poring over library books in my room, and practicing spells over and over again. My roommates had studiously avoided the room until bedtime, and then they'd been careful not to speak to me.

"Miss Hebert," Snape said from behind me.

I'd known he was there, of course, but I wouldn't have had I been limited to human senses. He was very good at lurking and blending into the shadows.

"Close the door," he said.

I did so, carefully, and then I turned to meet his eyes.

"What you did was inexcusable," he said. "Mr. Avery almost died, and his parents are withdrawing him from school and making a complaint to the aurors. He is in St. Mungos now."

I had no idea what St. Mungos was, and I didn't feel like asking.

"So why haven't they come for me?"

"There is evidence that he was the one who sent the infected letter to you," Snape said. "And the Aurors have decided, with the Headmaster's prompting that he was attempting to brew a boil creating formula in his bathtub, one of monstrous proportions, and that he fell in."

"They fell for that?" I asked incredulously.

"You will find that there are competing groups in the Wizarding worlds. Some strongly dislike the muggles. The other... does not particularly care for them either, but dislike the first group even more. Mr. Avery's family has been involved in some unsavory practices in the past, and this is the Aurors first chance to concoct an excuse to go after them.

"On trumped up charges..." I said flatly.

The more I heard about Wizarding society, the less I liked it. It was possible that there were wonderful things about it, but the victim rarely appreciated the culture of the oppressor.

"Of which you are the beneficiary," Snape said. "However, I doubt that something similar will happen again. Even the Headmaster's patience has its limits."

"I... don't know what you are talking about," I said. "Avery had enemies."

"That is true," Snape said. "Enemies that he has made peace with, or ones outside the house who would not be able to get to him in his own bathroom."

"So you're saying that I'm a good enough potionmaker after what... one lesson to create a potion that you haven't taught us and that isn't in the book?"

I knew that much because I'd checked.

"It was a question that I asked myself as well," Snape said. "But I did some tests on the bathwater. It was suffused with a very strong version of the very first potion that I teach first years."

"The potion that's designed to repair boils," I said.

"The potion that I specifically told you how to turn into something dangerous," he said. "As exemplified by your friend, Mr. Longbottom."

"It seems like a lot of circumstantial evidence," I said. "Nothing that would hold up in court."

"You haven't been in Wizard courts, Miss Hebert," Snape said. "The standards of evidence are... considerably looser than in the Muggle world."

"And they aren't asking to have me sent to Azkaban?" I asked.

"No," Snape said. "They have declined to press charges... undoubtedly because they intend to kill you the moment that you step off the train at the end of the term."

"I guess I'd better stay over for the holidays," I said.

"This is not a laughing matter," he said. "The Averys are adult wizards, not schoolboys, and they fully intend to kill you."

"I already have death eaters wanting me dead," I said. "Why is this any different?"

He stared at me.

"The only way I will survive is to be strong enough that no one will dare to come after me," I said.

"No one is that powerful except the Dark Lord himself," Snape said. "And the Headmaster. More importantly, neither of them is alone. They have allies. Were they alone, inevitably someone would try to kill them, and even Wizards have to sleep."

"And I don't have any allies. Where would I find them?" I asked. "Upper years either despise me for being too confident, or ignore me as unimportant. First years don't have the power to be good allies."

"That will not always be the case," Snape said. "The allies you make now may be with you for your entire life."

"You think I can afford to make long term investments?" I asked.

I realized now how preachy I must have sounded out on the lawn during flight class. I'd hoped that I wouldn't sound like some kind of clueless mom because they thought I was one of them, but listening to Snape now, I found myself feeling impatient, even though part of me knew that he was right.

"Can you afford not to?" Snape said.

I frowned.

Having someone other than a few bugs to watch my back would be nice, but I'd never been all that good at making friends. Emma had been my only close friend in my childhood, and once she betrayed me, I hadn't had any other friends until I'd been with the Undersiders.

As a hero, I'd had work associates. I had never been as close to any of them as I had been to a group of teenage supervillains. The thought that I would never see anyone that I cared about again created an ache in my...

Better not to think about it. Focus on the task at hand, and let the rest of it fall as it might.

"We will go over the potion that you made," Snape said. "Including dosages, and why what you did was irresponsible and dangerous. I will explain at length just how dangerous what you did was, and then you will spend whatever time is left cleaning the pot."

"So you'll help me understand what a safe dosage is?" I asked him. "Not that I'm admitting to anything, mind you. But I'd have thought that being diluted by that much bathwater would have made it almost harmless."

"And how much did you put in the bathwater to compensate for that?" Snape asked.

"Well, if I'd done it, I might have put six batches in," I said. "That's not that much, right, given how much bathwater there was."

Snape put his hand to his eyes. "Each batch of boil remover consists of six doses," Snape said. "Made in larger lots to conserve effort and energy."

So instead of six doses, I'd dropped thirty six doses in.

"He inhaled the fumes," Snape said. "Which at lower doses would be relatively harmless. At that dose it formed boils inside his lungs. He was apported to St. Mungos, and it is likely that it will be several months before he is returned to normal, even with Wizard healing."

"I thought Wizards could grow back bones," I said.

"They can't grow back lungs!" Snape said irritably. "I'm tempted to turn you over to the authorities myself, and hang what the Headmaster wants."

"Why did he go to bat for me?" I asked.

"He believes that you can reform my wayward house," Snape says. He chuckled darkly. "He believes that everyone can be reformed... even you, Miss Hebert."

"And you?" I prodded.

He shook his head. "I know better. There are people in this world who will never be reformed."

I wondered if he felt that he was himself a member of that group. He'd been a Death Eater, after all, and in some ways he still was. He was like any undercover cop; he had to sit by and watch as all sorts of crimes happened. If he tried to stop them, he'd be killed, and whatever good his role was doing would be undone entirely.

"I'll watch out," I said. I looked up. "I don't suppose that the Headmaster has decided where to put me over the summer?"

"You've made the task considerably harder with this stunt," Snape said. "There were several prospects, but none of them want a blood feud with the Averys."

"So he isn't dropping me in a muggle orphanage?"

"You'd be dead in two days," Snape said. "He is continuing to look. As you will be staying over for the holidays, there is no great hurry, is there?"

I shook my head. Given the way I understood the Trace worked, the more time I spent in areas where there were large numbers of Wizards, the better.

"So now we will go over what you did, step by step," Snape said. "And I will explain to you exactly what you did."

Doubtlessly he intended to be pedantic and if I'd been an ordinary eleven year old, being forced to listen to an extra lecture would have bored me to tears. But I'd heard the other Slytherins describing Snape as a potions master. If they'd done it in front of his face, I'd assume that they were exaggerating to get on his good side, but as he had been nowhere nearby, I had to assume that they'd been sincere.

But learning the theory behind dosing was something that I absolutely needed to know, and I suspected that he could be a good teacher if he was actually motivated.

As it turned out, he could. I didn't even mind having to clean out cauldrons.

This was my first Monday at Hogwarts classes; the previous Monday had been spent arriving by train.

Learning Wizarding combat was something I was very interested in learning. Unfortunately, right now the only combat spells I had were the cutting spell and possibly the levitation spell, and I could dodge with the best of them. However, I hadn't seen how fast Wizard spells traveled, which was going to make it hard to just how fast I needed to be.

After detention, I found Hermione waiting for me. We were supposed to go to the library together and study with Neville as we'd promised. I had some thoughts about asking the both of them to ask other members of their houses to join our study group. If I couldn't make friends in my own house, I'd have to reach out to others.

"Hello," I heard from behind me. I'd seen them walking up, of course. "Who is this I see, brother? The impossible girl?"

"What?"

Two redheads were staring at me and Hermione.

"A muggleborn snake," the second twin said. "It's like seeing a intelligent member of the Ministry."

"Isn't your father a member of the Ministry?" Hermione asked waspishly.

She had aspirations to eventually be Minister for Magic. I didn't have the heart to tell her that the cards were stacked against her. The government seemed to be very much an old boy's network. Of course, I was mostly listening in to Slytherin conversations, and so my point of view might be biased.

I could reach bugs in any part of the castle, but I didn't dare take my attention off my immediate surroundings in case of more attacks. I did keep an absent ear on the conversations of the people closest to me at all times, and I'd even managed to pay attention to two conversations at once, although that too made my head ache.

"That is a point," the first twin said. "And we never said that the fruit falls far from the tree."

"After all," the second twin said. "We're talking to the crazy muggle girl who has already put four fifth year boys in the hospital."

"Allegedly," I said.

"So you didn't?" they asked.

I shrugged. "I might have. I've never done anything to anyone who didn't deserve it, at this school at least."

"So careful with her words," the first boy said. "Like a true Slytherin. Are you planning to become a used broom salesperson when you grow up?"

"No," I said.

I'd been watching them closely over the past few days. I didn't like some of the pranks they were doing, but it didn't seem that they were focusing on any one group, other than the Slytherins. Against most people, their pranks seemed to be harmless jokes. Against Slytherins, they seemed to be harsher, but as most of the people they targeted in Slytherin seemed to be the people who didn't like me the most, I was tempted to give them a pass on that.

"You know that Slytherin is... unhappy with me," I said. "Not anything I've done, in particular, except maybe the beating and the boils, but just because of who I am."

They nodded sagely.

"Part of the reason that I have to be lethal is because as a firstie, I only know a few spells, mostly the cutting spell. If anybody tries to attack me, I'm going to have to cut them, and maybe hurt them badly. If I only knew some less lethal spells, then life might be easier for everybody."

"Is the little firstie asking us for a favor?" one twin asked.

"Asking us to tutor her in combat spells? The kind that would help her continue to do horrible horrible things to the Slytherins?"

"That should be part of the appeal, I would imagine," I said. "Every time I beat a Slytherin, it hurts the rest of them right in the soul. It makes a mockery of everything they believe in."

"We're very good at mockery," the first twin said.

"But doing it for free seems a bit much," the second twin said.

"What would it take for you to agree?" I asked. "I've got a bit of money."

"Help," the first twin said. "You've got to be a clever little firstie to have done what you've done. Help us with some of our more difficult stunts, and we would be happy to help you along your path to becoming Dark Lady."

"She's not a Dark Lady!" Hermione said gallantly.

"Not yet," the second twin said. "But she's already got friends in Griffindor and Ravenclaw. If she makes some in Slytherin, that means we're all doomed."

"Doooomed." the first twin said. He grinned at us.

I could tell that neither twin believed what they were saying. They reminded me a little of Uber and Leet, without being nerds. They had an interest they were focused on, and there was a sort of monomania involved, where they had trouble thinking about anything else.

"I've heard you boys sell joke supplies," I said. "I'd be interested in seeing what you had... and I've got some money."

"Blood money, that," the second twin said. "But we can clean it off."

"Make a list of what you've got and prices, and I'll let you know what I'm planning to buy," I said. "With luck, I might be one of your best customers."

"I suppose you want a list of our more...lethal jokes," the first twin said.

"If you can think of a way to turn it into a weapon, it might make me more inclined to buy it," I admitted. "I'm in the snake's den, and I could use any advantage I can get."

The two looked at each other, frowning. "The professors are keeping a closer eye on us after last year, but with your help we might be able to carry out epic pranks."

"I reserve the right to refuse to help on anything that is too mean," I said. "I don't like bullies. But fun things, sure, I'm willing to help."

"You aren't planning to hurt anyone, are you?" Hermione asked. "Or do anything that's going to get someone expelled."

"We blew up an entire corridor last year, and we're still here," both twins said at once.

Hermione frowned and seemed to hesitate. Finally it looked like she came to a decision. She took a deep breathe.

"I want in too," Hermione said, with a quick look at me. "I can help, but I want the extra tutoring."

"So we'd have access to three of the four houses," the first twin said musingly. "This almost seems like a dream come true."

"Almost too good to be true," the second twin said. "If it was any other Slytherin we wouldn't be listening to this at all."

"Taylor is loyal," Hermione said stubbornly. "And she does what she says she's going to do."

"That's true," I said mildly. "Which includes when I make threats. I don't want any pranks directed at me, unless it's required to pull off a prank against the entire house, or the entire school," I said.

"The entire school?" the first twin asked.

"Firstie has ambitions," the second twin said. "What sort of prank would the firstie have us play on the entire school?"

"Oh, put something in everybody's shampoo to make their hair turn the color of their opposing house," I said. "Everybody... and if you could have it be delayed a few hours that would be even better... it would keep late bathers from getting caught up in it."

"Ambitious," the first twin said. "But not impossible. But what about Hufflepuff?"

"Suborn a house elf," I said. "They clean everything anyway. Convince one of them to do it, and you'd never have to be even remotely close to them."

"It'd take some potions work," the first twin said, looking at the other. "And we'd have to save it for something big, like the holidays. But it could be done."

"So what do you think?" I asked.

"I think we can work together," the boys said in unison.

They held out their hands, and I shook them.

I was one step closer.1801ShayneTApr 8, 2019View discussionThreadmarks BystanderView contentShayneTApr 10, 2019#6,933"Ready to give up, firstie?" George asked.

I grimaced, sweat running down my face. Not running was turning out to be worse than I'd thought.

Dodging spells wasn't that hard; I was quick, small and agile, and I had years of experience with my bugs help. What was hard was keeping it up; my endurance was terrible.

Worse, I was training without my bugs. I wasn't going to be able to depend on always having them, and training without them was the only way I was going to get better.

I'd finally learned to separate the two based on a difference in the freckles on their faces. To allow them their fun, I pretended that I neither knew nor cared about the difference.

"Expelliarmus," I called out, but George pivoted, and managed to avoid the spell.

Aiming without my bugs was a lot harder too, especially since spells actually were slow enough to dodge. People often weren't where they were when I'd aimed the spell, which meant that I had to anticipate where they were supposed to be.

So far, the boys had taught me and Hermione three spells... Expelliarmus, Flipendo, and Petrifucus Totalis. In return, we'd already done some minor services for them; dropping small parcels in places, giving them some information about where people would be and the like.

Neville had joined us, and he was the one Hermione and I practiced on the most. Hermione had learned the cushioning charm and had taught it to me, and so we were in an abandoned classroom with all the chairs stacked against the wall.

We'd been careful that people not know what we were doing; half our value to the Weasleys was that people didn't know about our connection.

"I never knew it would be so much fun to abuse a firstie," George taunted.

I found myself flying through the air, hitting the pillows on the wall behind me. I grimaced as I fell to the pads on the floor. The boys had managed to transfigure some after I'd described what they were. What they'd come up with was something more like mattresses than athletic pads.

Moving on that kind of unstable surface was hard, but I preferred that to being injured over and over again. The unpleasantness of flying through the air was exactly the kind of thing that helped us get better.

Hermione insisted on staying just as long as I had, and to my surprise so had Neville, even though he was having a lot more trouble than I was physically. While I was slamm and lithe, he was stocky and had more weight, which made him slower.

While that made him a perfect target for us to practice on, it meant that as often as not he was gasping for air by the end of the session and looking like he was going to have a heart attack.

The one thing that the twins seemed clear on was that it was better to know a few spells very well, instead of a large number of spells poorly. They'd apparently been involved in some sort of running battle with Slytherin the year before, and it had escalated, giving them more experience than they would have liked.

I'd managed another week without being attacked, even though it was just a matter of time. People were stupid, and the initial horror of what had happened to the Avery kid would fade, and the anger would still remain. People would start to rationalize and to assume that it was a one time thing, and sooner or later someone was going to try something.

Without looking weak, I'd tried to explain my position to the Weasley twins; that I did have a sense of humor, but that I couldn't be seen as weak.

They'd seemed to understand. There had already been several low level skirmishes between them and the Slytherins already this year, and I suspected that they were supporting me more as a slap in the face to the Slytherins as to actually help me.

The one thing they were doing that was really helpful was that they were giving me an idea of what fighting was like, at least at school. I had no doubt that Aurors and Death Eaters fought on an entirely different level, but I wasn't facing anyone like that.

I was dealing with school boys, although some of the upper years were getting closer to being actual Death Eaters themselves.

If I'd been Voldemort, I'd have already had some of the boys in my organization already. However, I suppose that the Dark Mark, whatever that was would be hard to hide in a place with people living as closely together as a boarding school.

I'd have created a sort of outer level, a bottom lair of members who didn't receive the mark if that was the problem. Having agents in the school itself would be helpful if I was keeping an eye on the Potter kid.

I'd heard some of the elder Slytherins speculating about the Dark Lord's interest in him. Apparently he was protected somehow during the summer, and so attacking him at school seemed to be likely.

An assassination attempt at the train station would be what I did; depending on the kind of protection he had, I'd have people attack him there or on the way home. If that didn't work, I'd station people outside his house, and then wait for him to come out. It was possible that his protection was only around his house, like the protections that I'd heard a lot of Wizarding houses had. In that case, the first time he went to a restaurant or a walk around the block, he was dead.

Wizards, it seemed tended not to go for group tactics. Battles, at least according to the Weasleys tended to be one on one duels, with larger skirmishes being rare and not involving much in the way of tactics. It was possible that they were wrong; but I hadn't managed to find anything in the library that contradicted them.

There were things I could do to take advantage of that; I could teach Wizards the advantage of attacking each other en masse, of taking cover, of tactics. But if I did, it wouldn't take the other side long to pick up on how useful those tactics were, and once they did, I'd have started an arms race that might not stop until their entire culture was in flames.

Most Wizards were relatively lazy, from what I'd heard from Neville and the Twins. They did the minimum to get by, and the powers they had ensured that they didn't have to do much. Most Wizards didn't have to pay rent, or get insurance, or even maintain a car.

They had to pay for some food, but most of their other expenses could be covered with magic. Like most people in the muggle world, they tended to specialize; one wizard might be good at making a certain thing, but no so good at another. He would trade with someone who had the opposite skills, or they'd both go through a broker.

No Wizard was good at everything, which was why the economy worked at all. There still had to be people to write the books and raise the food and animals and sell things in shops. If Wizards had been able to simply conjure everything they needed, there wouldn't have been much of a need for them to interact with each other at all.

Despite this, they were much less interdependent than muggles, and most of them didn't really have to work much.

From what I could see, they weren't required a lot of the education that Muggles received either. They didn't study government, or history. I had a vague idea that Arithmancy was something like mathematics, but otherwise I couldn't see any muggle subjects that were being taught.

That meant that most Wizards had the equivalent of a sixth grade education. What did that do to their critical thinking abilities? Did it make them more credulous and more easily led?

Was that why the education system was set up the way it was, to make ruling over the average Wizard that much easier?

It wouldn't surprise me to find that the people in power made sure that their children had private tutors and received a better education at home.

Limiting their education would also limit opportunities for muggleborns to simply slip back into the muggle world should they find the prejudice too great. Job opportunities without a high school diploma, or whatever the British equivalent was would be just as limited in the muggle world, and I had a nasty suspicion that was the point.

Still, before I stared suggesting ways to improve Wizard tactics, I'd best master theirs. It was possible that there were limitations on Wizardly warfare that weren't readily apparent.

Despite the cushioning charms, my body was covered in sweat, and I was aching. Hermione and Neville didn't look much better.

"As much fun as this is," George said. "We've got to get back to working on our great Halloween project."

I took a deep breath and rose to my feet.

I grabbed a towel and wiped my face. "I appreciate that you guys are actually following through with this."

"We're getting better too," George admitted. "There's some real twats over in Slytherin, and we've already had some run ins with them this year, even if the professors are keeping an eye on us."

I'd already seen some low level skirmishes in the halls between the different houses. Slytherin and Gryffindor seemed to have the biggest rivalry, although no one seemed to be immune. The Hufflepuffs at least seemed to stick together, which was something that I needed to push for whoever I was going to be working with.

"Are you ready?" I asked Hermione. She was wincing as she rose to her feet from where she was working with Fred.

She'd questioned why we were starting so violently, but I'd explained to her that it was the very unpleasantness of the experience that made you learn faster. Without something at stake, even if it was just a little pain, no one would ever be motivated to learn to do better.... and that would be deadly when stronger spells came into play.

Hermione nodded, wiping sweat from her brow. "I think I'm getting better," she said.

She was, and faster than I was. I'd started with an advantage from my years of fighting, but she was moving forward with a sort of focused intensity that was surprising. I would have been proud to have had a recruit as motivated back on my old Protectorate team.

"I'm going to need a bath," I said.

I always checked my bathtub with insects these days; no need to have someone turn my own trick against me.

Hermione and I separated. Her house was in one of the towers, and mine was in the dungeons. As I made my way down the stairs, I stiffened as I heard a whispered conversation through my bugs.

"Are you a snake or a pig?" I heard a mocking voice say.

Millicent was alone, and two large Gryffindor boys were standing over her. She was staring at the floor.

"Do you think she even knows?" the second boy asked the first. "Must be confusing, trying to decide whether to crawl on your belly or stick your face in a trough."

"I can see which one she's been choosing," the first boy chortled.

I heard Mildred sniffle, although she was doing her utmost to pretend that nothing they were saying bothered her. I'd heard her and Tracey talking at night, when they thought I was asleep, and her own family had been making comments to her like this for her entire life.

"Is the little baby going to go cry to mama?" the second boy asked. "Because I doubt that the other snakes are going to care. You're part muggle."

"Part muggle, part snake and part pig... what does that make her?"

"Stupid," the second boy said. "Just look at her face. She shouldn't even be here."

I hesitated.

I'd been working on getting the goodwill of the other houses; the last thing I needed was for Gryffindor to turn against me, especially as I valued the alliance with the Weasley twins. Getting involved in this would threaten everything I had been trying to put together, and it wasn't like Tracey or Millicent had ever done anything for me.

No one had seen me, and it would be easy for me to turn and walk the other way. No one would ever know, and no one would look down on me for something they didn't know I'd tried.

Millicent tried to push her way past them, and one of them shoved her back.

I closed my eyes.

How many times had I gone over my own bullying in my mind? It had lasted years, and while the locker had been traumatic, with bugs crawling all over me, and being trapped in a small, dark space, that hadn't been the worst part.

The part that had broken me was that there were dozens of onlookers, people who knew what was happening, and none of them had helped.

They'd cared so little about me, that it wouldn't have mattered if I'd died.

Objectively I'd known that most of them had probably been too scared to do anything; afraid that they'd end up a target of Emma and Sophia. Still, none of them had so much as put a quiet word in a teacher's ear.

Could I really turn myself into a member of that crowd? Could I make myself into exactly what I had hated?

No.

Sighing, I reached into my pocket for some darkness powder, then I hesitated. I needed to send a message, and attacking from behind would make me seem like just another crazy girl.

I could see some first year Hufflepuffs watching from behind the other corner as well. I had no doubt that they would quickly report whatever they saw to their friends.

Stepping around the corner, I said "Leave her alone."

Both of them turned and stared at me.

"Well, if it isn't little Miss Crazy," the first boy said. He didn't seem particularly worried.

"Facing us in the light," the second one said. "Not too smart."

I strode toward them. "Let her go, and I won't hurt you too badly."

"Making threats," the second boy said. "Like we're Slytherin cowards."

"I warned you," I said.

I spun to the side as a stunner flew where I had just been. I had bugs on the boys, but I missed having a defensive screen of bugs.

"Flipendo!" I shouted, and one boy went flying.

My left arm went numb as the other boys spell clipped me. I ignored it, and I continued walking toward him.

"You think the stories about me are overblown?" I asked. "Exaggerated?"

I lunged forward and grabbed his wand. He held onto it tightly, and with a twist of my wrist, I snapped it. I stuck my wand in his face and I said softly, "Diffendo."

Hairs fell from his bangs. He grimaced and lunged forward, and I spun out of the way. He tripped and fell, and suddenly Millicent was on his back, pounding his face into the floor.

The other boy was rising to his feet, but I quickly petrified him.

Once I had both boys petrified, I levitated the first one by his clothes, and I moved him toward the head of the stairs.

"I've had some pretty good luck with stairs," I said to Millicent. "Do you think anyone would know what happened if I dropped him off the side here?"

I could hear muffled groans coming from him. The Hufflepuffs had already left. I wasn't planning to do anything terrible to him, but I needed him to understand.

Floating him out over the side of the staircase, I flipped his body so that he was facing straight down.

"I hope you invested in good quality robes," I said. "If those rip, it's lights out for you."

"Or you could start leaving the lower years alone," I said. "Most of them aren't Death Eaters yet, but it's almost like you want them to be."

There were muffled cries from the two boys; the other boy was watching what was happening with wide open eyes, even as Milliect was punching away at him. She was doing a good job.

I let him drop a little bit, and I could hear a muffled scream.

There was also a little ripping sound. I swung him around so that he was back up on the landing.

"You could try to take revenge on me," I said. "But I can get to you even in your own room."

Letting the boy drop to the floor, I leaned forward and whispered, "I even know the password to your common room...it's Mongoose."

The boy muttered something about Neville.

"Oh, Neville didn't tell me. I know how to get in the Hufflepuff common room and the Ravenclaw too. Nobody is safe, and if you should happen to catch me by surprise... well, I'm not even angry with you now. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry, I don't think. The last person who made me angry was Mr. Avery, and where is he now?"

I stood up and kicked the boy in the face. I might have loosened some teeth and broken his nose, but I didn't do any permanent damage.

"Come on Millie," I said. "They aren't worth it."

Although I kept my face neutral, inside I was grimacing. This was going to cause problems with the Gryffindors; hopefully I'd be able to explain it to the Weasley twins in a way they could understand.

The last thing I needed was to have two houses against me.

I stiffened as I felt Millie grab my left arm. She was looking up at me with an expression that seemed strange on her face.

Her eyes were shining.