The Slytherin Diaries: Heirs of Grindelwald

Who's got time for faded words
There's nothin' new we haven't heard
I wish to hell that I could tell the truth
From all the lies we keep inside
Behind closed doors
Inside our minds
I pray to heaven, save us from ourselves
Well, here I am
Another day
A lifetime's past since yesterday
Still I am no farther than before
Through all the roads and paths we walked
Endless nights alone we talked
Those miles will never mean a thing

-Nine Days, Regrets

The sun shone over her, blinding her with its closeness. There was no heat, however, no comforting warmth. An insubstantial sort of cold settled around her from an unseen source, making her shiver. Long blades of grass cut into her back like knives as they whipped in the non-existent wind beneath her.

Andi sat up with a bolt. She had been lying down in the middle of a large plain, not a signal sign of another human being's existence anywhere. In the far distance she could smell saltwater and hear the crash of waves against rocks, but it felt like chance that she had heard it, a mistake made by whoever had put her here. Trees scattered sparsely over the plain, but other than them the moor spread out unfettered to the grey horizon.

Andi stood up slowly, her muscles creaking under the oppressive dreariness that surrounded her. Her feet moved slowly in a circle, feeling the long grass that had left welts in her back crunch harmlessly beneath her boots.

She went in what she thought was a full circle, but everything looked the same. Andi realized she could keep turning around for forever and still have no idea where she was. Everything was just a heavy grey.

She kept turning, her senses slowly heightening to take in the discrepancies of this world. The color spectrum was far more limited than she had originally noticed, comprised mostly of greys and yellows and an occasional green. Hints of other colors peaked out of the heavy sky, but Andi could not find even the barest trace of red. Even the sun was only a dull, unfeeling yellow. There were no sounds, other than the distant sound of the ocean that somehow penetrated the misty boundaries.

Suddenly a grey castle rose above the field in front of her. Andi's eyes widened in surprise, she was positive it hadn't been there before. She blinked twice; the castle seemed to be moving farther away even as she looked at it. Something inside her told her to memorize something about the castle, anything about the castle that would allow her to recognize it in the future. Andi quickly focused her memory on the stone castle, memorizing the architecture as she mentally counted five towers and noted the drawbridge, despite the lack of a moat. Just as the castle faded into the horizon Andi made out the insignia over the drawbridge, two dragons entwined around a sword. There was writing on the sword, in Latin if she wasn't mistaken, but even her eyes weren't good enough to read it.

Andi felt fear paralyze her as the castle disappeared altogether. She was alone again, and she had no idea where she was. Of course, she had been alone the entire time, but without the somehow comforting presence of the castle she noticed her solitude even more acutely. Without making a conscious decision to do so, she started running, each foot digging in to the suddenly insubstantial soil. She felt no tiredness, no pain, as she ran faster than she ever had before, but perhaps that was because no matter how hard she pushed she didn't seem to be going anywhere. Not that she would know, of course, in this monotonous landscape.

"Wait!" Andi stopped dead in her tracks, which seemed to fade beneath her feet even as she watched. The voice was hesitant, hurried, as though it had still been deciding whether or not to speak when the word slipped out of its mouth. It was a voice she knew, the voice of her dreams, the voice she hated. She knew, beyond any reasonable or unreasonable doubt, that the voice was her father's.

She turned slowly, arms crossed. He walked towards her, his pace somehow brisk and hesitant at the same time. He stopped when he was still several meters away from her.

"Camilla?" his voice asked her something she didn't know the answer to. Andi forced herself to meet his eyes and found that they were her eyes, the same brilliant green hidden beneath a dull exterior, shadowed by bushy eyebrows. He wore thin round glasses that perched themselves over flat, pointy ears. His hair was black like Sameth's, but longer and pulled back into a ponytail. It gave him a sort of medieval look, even on top of his brisk, businesslike grey robes.

Andi looked at him, her arms still folded in expectation. There were so many things she wanted to say, but none that she could find the courage for. So she waited.

"I'm sorry I made you faint," he told her, not noticing the irony of his apology. Of all the things Andi wanted him to apologize for, fainting was the last one on her list. Until now, in fact, she hadn't even known that he had been the one who had made her faint. For that matter, she hadn't even noticed that she had fainted.

"I needed to talk to you," he continued. Not "I wanted to talk to you" or "I missed you," Andi noticed bitterly. Her gaze hardened and her foot began to tap impatiently on the dry grass.

"There are a lot of things I can't explain right now." Andi gave a small snort, and her father cringed. "But I needed to tell you... you have to trust Draco Malfoy." Andi raised an eyebrow, trying to hide her surprise. "I know you don't like him, but he's possibly the only way we're going to get through the coming storm." Andi digested each bit of information without registering it in her conscious, knowing that if she did she would have to show some sort of emotion and she couldn't deal with that right now.

"And... I know I'm not a position to suddenly be a father after fourteen years," he continued, smiling grimly. "But you might want to work a bit harder in school. It's important." Andi tried not to loosen up her glare.

"I have to send you back now," he told her. His hands clasped nervously behind his back and he gave another attempt at a smile. "Madam Pomfrey's nearly ballistic. I'm not sure how much of this you'll remember, but I had to try."

Andi opened her mouth, trying to think of something to say. Her father looked at her eagerly, trying to encourage her to say something.

"Who are you?" she asked finally, looking at him through dull eyes. He smiled sadly, and she knew there was nothing she could have said that would have hurt him more.

"I'm sorry." The last thing she heard was her father's voice resonating through the empty air of an insubstantial dream. Heaviness settled around her, and she fell at last into dreamless sleep.

"Leave!" Andi smiled at the familiar, agitated voice of Madam Pomfrey. Her smile grew wider as she tried to remember the last time she'd smiled for nobody's benefit but her own. Her eyes fluttered slowly open.

White light met her eyes, blaring over her like an afternoon sun... Andi felt a shiver of déjà vu wash over her without knowing where it was from.

"Oh, good dear, you're awake." The curtains around her head burst open and Madam Pomfrey's head peered over her. "Professor Weasley and the Headmaster have been arguing for the past hour over whether or not you were in an enchanted sleep," she told her, shaking her head in disapproval. "Of course neither one would listen to me when I told them it was just a fainting spell... what on earth did they hire me for anyways?" The nurse's nose wrinkled. "Professor Weasley was convinced you're soul had been snatched by some soul snatching creature or another... fine Defense Against Dark Arts Teacher he'll make 'soul snatching creature' my arse!" Andi blinked in surprise. Madam Pomfrey seemed even more flustered than usual. "And of course Professor Dumbledore kept telling him that no, you were perfectly fine, you were just in an alternate world." The nurse rolled her eyes as Andi tried to digest all this information. "Anyways, dear, just drink this and you can run along to the feast. I'm sure the sorting ceremony's over, but Dumbledore has yet to give his start of the term speech."

Andi was handed a vile, lumpy brown potion that seemed to emit the essence of swamp. Madam Pomfrey bustled off into the other room, not checking to see if Andi had drunk it. Andi clasped the lopsided mug between her knees and looked around the room.

Several of the beds around her were occupied. For a moment Andi was worried that people had actually gotten hurt, but she quickly realized that most of the beds were filled with hysterical first years sobbing into their pillows. Andi tried not to laugh.

The bed next to her wasn't occupied by a first year; in fact, it wasn't occupied by a Hogwarts student at all. Almost every article of clothing on him proclaimed Beauxbatons in tasteful, swirly silver writing. Andi nearly laughed again when she saw the silver hat by his bedside flash "Beauxbatons is Number One" spiral around the surface.

The tenant of the bed sat up, a scowl on his lean face. "So you're finally up," he told her, condescension encompassing his voice so that is sounded unpleasantly like Malfoy's. Blonde curls dangled around his face. "Do you have any idea how many people have been hovering over you?"

"No," Andi told him, her forehead wrinkled in genuine surprise.

The Beauxbatons boy open his mouth, trying to find a witty comeback but without any luck. Finally he scowled. "An awful lot of redheads, I can tell you that much. First there was that teacher, then the tall awkward one..."

"Ron?" Andi interjected, her face falling. Why couldn't he leave her alone?

"I don't know!" The boy replied, annoyed at being interrupted and at being excepted to know a Hogwarts' student's name. "And then there was the pretty one..." his voice trailed off slightly dreamily, and Andi scowled. Gathering up her courage, she snatched the mug and drank the entire potion in one gulp. Between drinking the potion and staying here listening to this boy, she'd take the potion.

"Well, have a nice night in the infirmary, then," Andi told him, jumping lithely out of the bed and making a dash for the door. He hand had just touched the door knob when the voice she had been dreading interrupted again.

"Wait!" Andi's hand stopped, although she silently willed the door to burst open of it's own accord and allow her to escape.

"You're supposed to show me where the great hall is," the boy told her, leaping out of the bed after her. "I woke up to hours ago, but Madam Pomfrey didn't have time to show me so I had to wait for you to get up." The boy wrinkled his nose in disgust as Andi turned away so she could roll her eyes at the door. The silent wood commiserated with her.

"This way," Andi told him, resigned. She pushed open the door and walked briskly down the hallway, not checking to see if he was following her.

"What's you're name, anyway?" Footsteps scurried after her along the carpeted hallway.

"Camilla," she told him curtly, wishing she could be anywhere else. Especially since she just realized that she had never been the infirmary before, and wasn't entirely confident of her way back. The last thing she needed right now was to make a fool of herself in front of this pesky Beauxbatons.

"I'm Narcissus Lockhart," the boy announced proudly. Andi stopped dead in her tracks.

"Lockhart?" She asked, her tone incredulous and resigned at the same time. It would be her luck.

"You mean my half-brother Gildroy," Narcissus said knowingly. "We go and visit him at St. Mungus's twice a year." It was all Andi could do not to burst into tears at that very moment. Something was nagging at the back of her mind, some memory or dream that seeming important, but all she could focus on was this bratty student whose half-brother happened to be only the most pretentious, oblivious teacher she'd ever met.

"I was going to be a third year a Beauxbatons, but then it got blown up," Narcissus told her in a perfectly conversational tone. "So they're putting me in Slytherin here."

Andi stopped dead in her tracks. Another feeling of déjà vu came over her and she paused for a second, trying to remember. The feeling slipped away again, and she turned to face the third year.

"Wait just a second," she said running her hand tiredly through her messy hair. "All the Beauxbatons are coming here?" Her jaw dropped.

Narcissus nodded knowledgably. "Yep," he grinned. "We had our own sorting ceremony yesterday with that musky hat." His nose wrinkled. "Then we had a small feast, just us Beauxbatons, without all of you," he seemed determined to get the exclusiveness of the feast across to her, "but then someone cast a Engorgement charm on my foot and I had to go to the nurse." He seemed quite proud of the fact, but Andi had stopped paying attention. Instead her pointed ears listened intently for sounds of a feast.

"This way," she muttered. She led the new third year swiftly through the hallway, following her sense of smell and hearing and praying she didn't get lost. Suddenly she stopped again.

"The sorting hat put you in Slytherin?" she asked, suddenly recalling his earlier monologue. The boy nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but Andi had already turned around again. She almost felt bad for the boy. She was probably one of the most tolerant of her housemates, and even she couldn't stand him. He was in for a rough year.

"Here's the great hall," Andi told the doomed Slytherin, more kindly then she had intended. "Our table is the one all the way to the left." Andi snuck along the wall towards the familiar, not entirely unwelcome sight of her table and sat down next to her year mates. She didn't look to see where Narcissus had gone.

"Are you okay?" Persephone asked her, eyes wide with worry. Andi felt strangely touched. Persephone had certainly changed.

"I was fine, I just..." Andi's voice trailed off for a moment. She vaguely remember fainting by the train tracks, and then... a dream, a dream that seemed important but that she couldn't remember anything about. Had there been a dragon in it? A dragon and a sword...

"Falco!" Andi cringed as the familiar, taunting voice echoed down the table. "Heard you fainted... weak heart?" Malfoy's face leered at her all the way from the other end of the table. Andi opened her mouth to retort, then closed it again, her expression thoughtful.

"Still weak from shock?" he taunted. The rest of the table watched them silently, forks held still midair and mouth's paused mid-chew.

"You know what, Malfoy, I'm sick of this." Andi stood up, trying to make her voice as menacing as possible. Her mind was racing, half of it trying to focus on remembering and the other half formulating a plan. She didn't even notice the scene she was making.

"Really? Because I've rather been enjoying making you look like a fool," Malfoy sneered, getting up from the bench and striding towards her. For the first time Andi began to feel nervous, but she was too determined to find out the truth to care.

"You've never made me look like a fool," she taunted, swishing her brown hair back with a what she hoped was a menacing glare. "You've teased me my entire time here, good for you, you can win a verbal war with a girl a year younger than you." Andi smiled as the superior grin disappeared from Draco's face and wondered vaguely about how proud she was of this ability. "But have you ever proved that you're actually superior? Are we wizards or aren't we?" Andi drew herself up to her full height for perhaps the first time ever, losing the hunch she had carried with her almost her entire time at Hogwarts.

Draco glanced superstitiously over her shoulder towards the teachers table to check that none of them were paying attention. "Are you challenging me to a duel?" He hissed incredulously, disbelief written in his eyes.

Andi sneered. "If I had a glove, this would be the part where I smack it across you're pale, sullen, petty face." Andi practically spit, surprising herself with her own viciousness. But she couldn't think about it now. The end had to justify the means, or her whole life had been a waste.

"Fine then." Draco still looked surprised, looking her up and down to make sure she wasn't an illusion. "Midnight, the trophy room."

"And give you time to tip of Filch?" Andi retorted, smiling again at his disbelief. There had been an entirely unsubstantiated rumor about a duel between Harry and Draco in there first year that Andi had gambled in using, and won by Draco's obvious embarrassment. "Now, the dormitory. You're the prefect," she put more disdain in her voice than she knew she had. "You know the password, no one will be there yet." They glared at each other, eye to eye, for several moments. The entire table seemed to be holding a collective breath.

"Fine!" Draco stormed at last, still slightly bewildered by the entire situation.

"Fine," Andi smiled, still taunting. She pushed past him and walked towards the door, not glancing to see if he was following.

The second she the doors of the Great Hall closed behind her Andi fell against the stone wall. What had she gotten herself into? She glanced at the heavy wood door, knowing it would burst open at any moment and knowing that she had to start walking before it did. Please don't open, she willed it. She couldn't go through with it. She couldn't confront Draco again. The first time had taken all her mental energy, she had nothing left to put into magic.

The door creaked open, slowly, like a signal of her doom. Andi pushed herself off the wall and had just enough time to regain her balance before Draco appeared on the other side.

"What took you so long?" She asked half-heartedly, praying she didn't collapse.

"Some of us had to make sure our teachers didn't notice the sudden absence of two students," Malfoy retorted, still obviously perturbed by this entire situation. "What on earth has gotten into you?"

"I had an extremely interesting dream that's coming back to me in little bits and pieces," Andi told him, trying desperately to keep her voice intimidating. "The funny thing is, the only people I'm positive we're involved in it were you... and my father." She didn't even have to try to say the word 'father' with disdain, it simply came naturally. "You know who he is, and you are going to tell me everything about him right now." A little voice inside her head kept telling Andi that she had to maintain a menacing façade.

"Dreaming about me?" Draco taunted, beginning to sound slightly less shocked now that her knew where her newfound strength had come from. "I never would have guessed." Andi didn't bite, and Draco sighed. "Why should I?" His voice had lost its taunting edge. It was simply a question, a challenge that by the superior tone of his voice he didn't think she had an answer to.

"Because if you don't, I'm fully prepared to live up to my promise of a duel." Andi's voice had dissolved to simply matter-of-fact. She tilted her head to the side. "Which leaves two possible outcomes... Number One, I kick you're arse all the way back to that fancy mansion you came from and believe me, I won't have a single regret about doing so." Malfoy snorted. "Or, Number Two, you live up to all that junk you've been parading around for the past three years and actually beat me, which I highly doubt, but even if you do I will make sure you cast enough of the illegal spells I'm sure you know that you get expelled." Andi tilted her head to the other side. "Of course, I could just be bluffing about this entire thing, but it would be much easier for both of us if you would just tell me who the hell my father is." Andi could feel her voice quiver at the last few words, but she didn't care. She'd laid out the options, and she was so sick of the constant bantering and the constant question about her father that she would stick to what she said, if only because she was too tired not to.

"I can't," Draco mumbled, leaning against the wall next to her.

"What?" Andi's voice rose to new heights. She couldn't have created such a huge scene for nothing. "What do you mean, you can't tell me?"

"He put a charm on me... I can't say his name, write his name, even show his name to you." Draco sounded tired, and more than slightly annoyed by this limitation. "It was actually in a contract your mother made your father sign when he... left... he can't tell you who he is, even through someone else."

Andi felt a fury boiling up inside of her that she hadn't felt since she yelled at Sameth in that crowed hallway so many years ago. "Can't you tell me anything?" She asked, turning to him. Draco seemed to back away slightly, alarmed by the anger that had risen in her eyes. "Like why he "had" to go away, or what he's doing now, or why my mother won't let anyone tell me who he is?" Her wand had risen into dueling position, aimed straight at Malfoy's left year. Draco maintained a calm look on his face, considering the situation.

"Calm down, Falco," Draco said slowly, looking as though he were immensely enjoying the sudden outburst. His hand reached up slowly toward her wand. Andi snatched it away just as his fingers closed around empty air. He scowled.

"Tell me," she told him through gritted teeth. She was beyond pure annoyance now; she wanted to know by any means possible. She was sick of seeing her father only in her dreams, she was sick of Draco's knowing smirk, she was sick of her mother's mysterious attitude towards her father.

"He had to leave because otherwise he would have gone to Azkaban," Draco told her calmly, a smile playing on his pale features. "Still glad you asked?" He smirked, not noticing the fumes Andi could feel spinning out of her head.

"For what?" she managed to get out through some unknown miracle.

"For betraying the Department of Mysteries to Voldemort."

Andi felt as though a lead weight dropped in her stomach, pulling her slowly to the ground. Words and phrases rushed spinning through her head, 'Azkaban', 'Voldemort,' 'Trust Draco,' 'I'm sorry.' There seemed a certain irony to her father telling her to trust Draco, when all Draco had been able to tell her was that her father was a sleazeball wizard that had betrayed everyone he'd ever known to Voldemort.

"Sounds like your sort of company," she told Draco half-heartedly, determined not to let him see how upset she was.

"Sounds like your sort of father," Draco retored, a smirk now permanently etched in his face. He'd won against the best Andi had to throw at him, and he knew it.

"What's the new password?" she asked him. All the fight had died out of her voice.

"What?" Draco was taken aback by this new round of questioning.

"The...new...password?" Andi asked more slowly this time, as though speaking to a small child. "You know, so I can go back the dorm?" She made a completely obscure, defeatist gesture with her hands as though she thought that would somehow help him understand.

"What am I supposed to tell the other Slytherins?" Draco asked, his tone still incredulous that she was completely giving up. He would have looked concerned if he had managed to wipe the smirk off his face, but of course that was asking too much.

"I don't care?" Andi's tone was rising in equal disbelief that her housemate wasn't taking the victory and running. "I just want the stupid password!"

"Feathered Wolfsbane." Andi blinked twice at the obscurity of the phrase, but didn't say anything.

"Thanks." She turned slowly and began to walk down the velvet cover hallway, the portraits of former headmasters looking at her sympathetically.

"Falco!" Draco's voice seemed like it would never lose that newfound what-the-hell-is-going-on-note. Andi turned slowly, her eyes tired as she met his eyes. Half his face seemed contorted in a sneer, the other half in complete disbelief. His head tilted slightly to the side as though he weren't quite sure what to make of her.

"Don't kill yourself or anything," Draco blinked several times, before he finally shook his head in complete disgust. He sauntered back into the Great Hall. Andi just watched him go, part of her wanting to scream but the rest of her being unable to conjure up the effort.

She didn't remember her long trek down the cold dungeon that she would spend the next nine months in. Andi wondered, guiltily, what house Niles had been sorted into. Hufflepuff was the most likely, she decided. He and Sameth could be amazingly alike sometimes, although Niles had been slightly more babied in his earlier years. Ravenclaw wouldn't be a stretch though; when Niles wasn't whining, he could be surprisingly sharp. He just tended to be lazy when he knew he could get away with whining... the more Andi thought about it, the more Ravenclaw became the obvious choice. She wondered how many other families could claim to have kids in three separate houses.

The portrait of a knight towered over her, its hooded head seem to laugh at her even without facial features. Andi realized she had no idea whether or not Draco had told the truth about the password, and that there was a good chance she could be sitting in the damp hallway for the next two hours.

Andi took a deep breath. "Feathered wolfsbane," she told the portrait firmly. The knight swung open, his helmet shifting in what seemed like a disappointed manner. Andi just ignored him and climbed through the hole.

A fire already blazed in the high stone fireplace, giving the common room a nearly cheerful light. Andi fell down on one of the plush green sofas and lay there, unmoving, for several moments as she stared at the wooden rafters that crisscrossed crookedly above her. Doorways coated the entire south side of the common room, each one leading to a dungeon with only a couple years in each. Andi wondered what she would do when everyone else got back from the feast. She had told Draco that she didn't care what people thought, and she hadn't at the time. Btu now she wasn't sure she couldn't face them.

Draco's last words were eating away at her, too. How pathetic did he think she was? She hadn't quite progressed that far in her whole life-is-completely-hopeless mantra. And even if she had, she didn't want to be obvious about it.

Andi didn't know how long she lay there, trying desperately not to think about anything because she knew where those thoughts would lead her. Fortunately, she only had ignore herself for an hour before footsteps began to resound above her.

She rolled off the couch, landing on the thinly carpeted cement with a grunt. Andi had a vague idea that if her housemates caught her like this they would think she was on witchweed, which definitely wouldn't result in anything good. In addition to probable expulsion, she was quite sure she would be beat up by some of the nastier seventh years if she didn't tell them where her stash was.

"I can get up," she muttered to herself, rolling over onto her stomach. "I'm not talking to myself, really." Her mind strained to find the coordination that would lift her off the floor, at last telling her arm muscles to push while her knees bent.

Andi stood up and looked at the floor that now seemed miles below her. "Not so hard," she told the ragged carpet, her arms resting on her hips defiantly. "Okay, talking to a carpet. Going to curl up in my bed now." She half-limped, half sprinted to the third door from the right Her dorm was at the very bottom of the steps, past the seventh year girl's dorms and on the right of the sixth year prefect room. Andi pushed open the small wood door just as the portrait door opened above her. She jumped quickly in the bed closest to the door, the bed that had traditionally been Florence's but Andi hardly noticed. She did hope, as she closed her eyes in false sleep, that they wouldn't notice she'd gone to bed with her robes on. On the other hand, maybe they would just think she was too upset about losing the duel to care.

Her heart beat quickly as she waited for the door to creak open. Of course there would be partying, but she was sure one of her roommates would have to come into the room for something... or maybe they wouldn't just to avoid her, because they would never want to speak to her again after she had completely humiliated herself. Andi buried her head in her pillow, and found it was much easier to pretend she was asleep.

The loud bang of the door flying open against the stone wall made Andi jump several inches above her bed.

"Oh, I'm sorry, did we wake you?" Persephone looked like she might cry if Andi said yes.

"Umm... no, I was just... reflecting." Andi searched for words as she pulled herself up to a sitting position, forgetting that this would reveal the robes she wore beneath the covers. Florence plopped down on the fluffy silver and green blanket next to her while Persephone ignited the torch by the door.

"So...?" Florence looked at her expectantly, her blue eyes dancing. "How did it go?" Her head nodded up in down like a muggle bobblehead.

Andi nodded back, eyebrows raised. "Why are we talking like this?" she asked, the slowly bobbing of her head matching her newly stunted speech.

"Because!" Florence's eyes widened in some unfathomable delight. "Draco burst into the Great Hall ten minutes after you guys left, sat down with a huff and didn't say a word through the entire feast. So how'd you beat him? Did he cry?" The fourth year's blonde curls shook with excitement. Andi recalled, belatedly, how public Draco had made his breakup with Florence and realized the girl was maybe just a tiny bit bitter.

"Draco didn't say he won?" Andi asked, disbelieving. "But..." her jaw dropped open, and try as she would, she couldn't make it close again.

"Draco won?" Persephone asked, stringing three entire syllables together with obvious effort.

Andi shook her head. "It was a draw," she said, her voice distant. "But...he could have... why didn't he?" Her mind seemed to be moving in slow motion as she tried to comprehend why Draco hadn't said anything. Maybe victory of a fourth year wasn't even worth it... but then why had he let them think he lost?

Suddenly Andi was angry. Just one more thing he could hold over her head. What was he doing, compiling a comprehensive blackmail list?

"Mmm, guess what?" Florence had obviously decided that the duel was last minutes news and was quickly moving on. "We have three new year mates from Beauxbatons." Her eyes lit up, if possible, even brighter. "Only it's really sad... there were twenty fourth years, and now there's only fifteen." To her credit, Florence tried to look sad, but her cherubim face just couldn't manage it. "Anyhow, there are these two twins, so cute, both of them, not identical though... what were there names...great arm muscles," Florence paused and rolled her eyes for dramatic affect.

"Adonis and Aiden Trosclair," Persephone said dully, giving a tiny smile to Andi. Andi guessed that maybe Persephone and Florence weren't getting as long as well as they used to. Then again, Persephone didn't seem quite like the same person she used to.

"And then there's this girl..." Florence wrinkled her nose in disgust. "She's American, and her parents, as we heard over and over and over again at dinner, are important American parliament members or something like that."

"They're muggle congressmen," Persephone correct softly. "Her name is Mary Sue Forester."

"She has green hair." Florence flipped her curls back and turned her nose up all in the same gracefully motion. "Green hair is so out."

"Maybe she was trying to show pride for her new house," Andi suggested off the top of her head. Florence just snorted and rolled her eyes.

"So," she said coyly, standing up off the bed. "Shall we go join the party and make all the other girls jealous with our phenomenal beauty?" Andi blinked at the request, peering around the girl to the crooked mirror that hung behind her. No, there had been no sudden beauty transformation; her hair was still nesty and her eyes were still murky. Florence must just need an entourage.

"I'm actually kind of beat," Andi apologized with an exaggerated grimace. Everything about this girl seemed to beg for petty hyperbole. "Besides, with me not there you'll have no competition at all."

"Uh-huh." Florence looked her up and down, her eyebrow arched skeptically. "However will I do without." She seemed to finally recognize the comradely mocking in Andi's tone. "Well, the party calls." She turned with an audible swish and sauntered out the door. Her two year mates watched her go with equal looks of disbelieving pity on their faces.

"They've already put the fifth bed in," Persephone noted, her voice slightly stronger now that Florence was gone. The two girls stared around the room for several moments in silence, the sounds of the party seeping through the dungeon walls.

"If you don't mind me saying," Andi began hesitantly, crossing her legs awkwardly over the covers of her four poster bed. "You seem... different."

Persephone gave a quiet, almost inaudible laugh. "You seem different, too," she said, grinning at some unspoken joke. Andi's eyebrows creased slightly.

"Really? How?" She checked the mirror again, but again, now sudden transformation. She sighed and looked back to Persephone, whose dark blue eyes met her own.

"Well, you would never have said that, for one," the girl told her with a crooked smile. She sat on the very corner of the bed, so far off Andi was worried she would fall.

Andi returned the smile with a lopsided one of her own. "Fair enough," she conceded. "But you never would have paid attention if I had," she pointed out, her crooked smile shifting from her right side, her ironic defeat side, to her ironic victory side on the left. She supposed most people couldn't tell the difference, but somehow a phrase like that just didn't feel like a sufficient come back if the right corner of her mouth was turned up instead of the left one. Andi decided she was completely narcotic, and turned to Persephone for her response.

"But you don't know that, because you never tried," Persephone told her reasonably. "Whereas I know beyond a doubt that you never would have said that, because you never did." Persephone lifted an eyebrow in victory, and Andi gave a mock scowl. It reminded her uncannily of her arguments with her brother, and she wondered briefly if Sameth had somehow managed to take over her classmate's body. She laughed aloud at the thought, surprising both herself and Persephone. Her new friend asked her what she had laughed at, but Andi steadfastly refused to tell her. Finally Persephone gave up and crawled into her own bed by the small slit in the wall Snape had determined was a window, and both girls went to sleep long before their three year mates returned.

"I'm never having Ogden's Fire Whiskey again," Florence muttered into her porridge, her nose barely staying above the surface of the mushy breakfast as she struggled with reality. Persephone patted a pitying hand on her back and slid onto the bench between her and Andi.

"She's been like this all morning long," Andi commented grimly. "I'd really hate to think about what Snape would do if he sees her like this in class." Persephone's eyes widened.

"We have Potions first?" Her voice sounded displeased, and, if Andi wasn't mistaken, a little bit fearful. She shivered, as though to shake herself out of whatever she was feeling, and rolled up her sleeves.

"Arevio!" She proclaimed loudly, with a bold swish of the wand. It was the first time Andi had seen her do anything confidently since the start of the year. Florence sat bolt upright, her eyes still red from the hangover but now fully awake and alert. She glared at Persephone and dug into her breakfast with normal morning sleepiness.

"Did we learn that in charms when I wasn't paying attention?" Andi asked, her mind still functioning slowly from all the event of the previous night. She made a mental note to check the library archives of the Daily Prophet as soon as possible. Draco may not have told her who her father was, but he'd given her enough information that she should at least be able to narrow it down.

"Just something I learned over the summer," Persephone said quickly, blushing a little. "You know... taking care of friends with strict parents, stuff like that." Andi felt like there was something Persephone wasn't telling her, but decided it wasn't a big enough deal to try and get her to elaborate.

"Potions with Gryffindors," she moaned instead. "You know, that porridge is looking very much like a pillow right now..." she looked dreamily at the bowl, wondering if she could go back to sleep, just for a few moments...

"Not you too," Persephone told dryly, moving the bowl out of her way just as her head hit the table. "I can only cure hangovers with magic, for sleepiness I have to use the whole ice water trick."

Andi bolted up in her seat and stared at the girl, shocked. "You wouldn't!"

Persephone lifted the goblet of water next to her, her face deadly serious. "Oh, I would." She lifted one eyebrow in a challenge.

"Morning," an overly cheerful, quite American voice said behind Andi before she could reply. "Hmm, let's see." A bright face surrounded by wavy green hair peered around at the two girls. "You must be Andi, because you have the brown hair," she smiled, and dropping her voice to a whisper, "I used to have brown hair to," she told them, as though it were a sacrilege. She turned to Persephone. "And you must be Persephone, because you don't have brown hair." She nodded knowingly.

"Astute observation," Persephone replied with an indulgent smile as Mary Sue sat down next to Andi. Julianne plopped down in the bench across from them, flashed an annoyed smile at Persphone and Andi before glaring at Mary Sue and promptly falling back asleep on the wood table.

"She was up really late last night," Mary Sue said, smiling brightly. "I was too, but I'm used to it, because I'm super popular back home." She said it with absolutely no humility in her voice. Persephone and Andi exchanged disbelieving looks.

"Too easy," Andi muttered, returning yet again to her porridge.

"Yeah, but it's seven o'clock in the morning so the bar is slightly lower," Persephone told her, staring at a spoonful of her own breakfast with a look of distaste.

"Not that low," Andi whispered back, rolling her eyes to their new companion who was still talking cheerily away to herself. The older end of the table suddenly grew loud with hoots of laughter. Andi leaned down and saw the fifth and sixth years all crowding around Malfoy and his two bodyguards as Malfoy did one of his famous Potter Impersonations.

"Now, I know all you poor pathetic first years have been just dying to meet me for you're entire pathetic lives, but you really must get off this train now. Don't worry, you can faint from excitement once you get to the ground, as long as you're away from the staircase...why? What do you mean why? Because I'm..." Draco paused for dramatic effect, at this point standing with a foot on the bench and one hand outstretched to the ceiling while the other clasped his heart, "Harry Potter." Draco let mock tears fall down his face, his chest heaving with emotion as he had apparently brought sarcasm into his routine. Obviously his popularity hadn't been affected, Andi thought only slightly bitterly.

Persephone sputtered slightly, looking as though she trying very hard not to laugh but not quite managing it. Andi glanced at her friend.

"Reminds you almost painfully of Professor Lockhart, doesn't it?" Andi asked grimly, torn between amusement and her still existing crush.

"Who...um, yeah," Persephone shook her head, still smiling. "Just as pompous." She made one last attempt keep from bursting into laughter, her lip trembling with the effort, before finally giving in and burying her head in her hands. Her shoulders continued to shake for the next ten minutes at Andi finished her breakfast. Finally she looked up, her face streaked with tears from giggling.

"When did he get so funny?" she asked, her voice still slightly choked. Andi looked at Persephone, slightly bewildered. Draco had been pretty low on Persephone's list since he dumped her last year.

Andi decided to forbear comment. "We should go to Potions," she told her, a scowl darkening on her face. "Morning double potions with Gryffindors. Could life get much worse?"

As it turned out, it could. Snape seemed in a particularly foul mood on his first day back teaching and set them all to work on the Flamagius Potion before they had even set their books down, telling them the formula was on page 2064 and that failure to complete the exercise successfully would result in point deductions. He then proceeded to pair them up in the most outrageous pairs he could devise, sending Andi over to work with Ginny and the twins so that Andi would have the unrivaled joy of watching the Gryffindor flirt for the entire period.

"Don't we have to crush the beetle wings first?" Andi asked, her voice more whiny then she liked. Adonis ignored her and let the whole wings flutter gently over the sides of the cauldron as he watched Ginny write down the brewing report, somehow completely entranced by her hand. Fortunately for the potion and for Andi's sanity, Aiden was slightly more in control of his senses. He scooped up the wings and past them to Andi before turning back to Ginny.

Andi blinked. If this had happened last year she would have accepted it as another snub in the long list of her generally invisible life. But yesterday something had changed, without her even noticing, and she had adjusted quickly to having friends and being paid attention to. And she refused to shift back.

She crushed the beetle wings with slightly harder pounds than she necessarily needed and dumped them into the potion. She decided to try Aiden first.

"What comes after the beetle wings?" Andi asked, her voice cracking slightly despite her newfound courage. Aiden looked up with a jerk, his bright blues eyes meeting hers with a slightly terrified glint. Andi noticed, with ironic amusement, that he was almost as shy as she was.

"Um... he flipped through the book, having previously not noticed that he was on the wrong page. "Grey dragon scales, singed along the edges." His voice was hesitant, but he smiled crookedly at her and Andi had to smile back. Adonis continued to stare at Ginny, who remained entirely oblivious as she checked the potion to note the color and continued writing. Her forehead was furrowed in concentration, and Andi wondered fleetingly if she was deliberately ignoring the new Slytherin.

"Incidio!" Aiden said, pointing at the small bowl of charcoal next the cauldron, sending a tall purple flame rising out of it. Andi grinned at him and passed him a pair of tongs, taking her own pair and delicately holding a scale on the edge of the fire.

"How many do we need?" Aiden asked her, pulling out a neatly charcoaled scale and letting it fall into the now purple potion.

Andi glanced down at her book, still concentrating on rotating her own scale around the flame. She cringed and looked up again. "Twenty-nine," she mourned, dropping their third scale. Aiden rolled his eyes and poked his brother with the still warm tongs.

"Don!" he said tersely, snappy his twin out his daze.

"What?" Adonis jumped and looked around quickly, as though expecting some terrifying creature to jump out at him. He turned back to his brother and poked him back. "Don't do that," he whined, his lower lip trembling. Andi would have thought he was serious is his tan face hadn't suddenly split into a huge grin and he rolled his eyes at both girls. "He's always had to play the part of the mean older brother," he told them, an absolutely dazzling smile on his face that held none of the hesitance of his twin's. Andi thought she would faint then and there.

Ginny looked up from her notes, her expression distracted. "Are we on the snake fang yet?" she asked, her eyes darting nervously around the room. Andi decided the Gryffindor looked too unfocused for Andi to get mad at her.

"We're working on dragon scales," she told her, picking up another one. "They're making the potion a thick yellow." Ginny nodded and returned to her notes. The twins looked at Andi questioningly, but their new classmate just shrugged and returned to the scales. The rest of potions passed in comradely silence, not even as horribly as usual because Snape was in the room less often then not.

You know, Andi mused to herself as she sliced the newt's eyeball. This year might not be terrible... if you don't can't the blown up train, the dead students and the return of Voldemort. She smiled grimly, but somehow felt better about the future of the world.