Loyality

Prologue:

Ink

Hannah blinked.

The bright sunlight that shone through the curtains of her four-poster bed was hitting her squarely in the face. She groaned and turned around, so that she was facing Susan's bed. It was about then she realized that something was very wrong. Because Susan wasn't there. And Susan was always there. Unless something was wrong. Like now. Hannah forced herself into a sitting position, and risked a look around. A sense of dread filled her stomach as she peered down at her wristwatch. Half past eight. Hannah was sure that if she had looked at herself in the mirror at that moment, she would see the blood drain from her face.

'Shit,' she muttered in a state of mild panic, before hurrying towards the bathroom. At least there's one positive thing about this, she told herself, trying to see the light in the situation. The bathroom won't be crowded. However, the thought did nothing to improve her mood.

'Susan!' she shouted, rushing down the stairs from their dormitory. 'Wait for me!'

Susan turned, her foot halfway out of the common room, with a slightly annoyed look on her face.

'Hannah,' she said, in a tone that matched her face perfectly, 'why can't you at least try to be on schedule?'

'I do try,' Hannah said, shoving her friend into the corridor outside before following her. 'My schedule doesn't like me, that's all.'

'Right.' Susan rolled her eyes. The two of them set sail towards the Great Hall - not that they had sails, but that wasn't the point - and breakfast. It was only when they entered the Great Hall that Hannah realized how hungry she was. She pulled Susan along to their usual seats before she helped herself with some food.

'Fifteen minutes,' Susan said curtly. 'I hope you're not a slow eater.'

'You know I'm not,' Hannah replied, pouring herself a glass of pumpkin juice. Usually. 'Besides, even if I was -'

'Were,' Susan corrected her automatically.

'Right. Even if I were, fifteen minutes is more than enough time. Pumpkin juice?'

'Yeah,' Susan said. 'But you really shouldn't make this a habit.'

'Why not?' Hannah asked.

'Because it's not healthy,' Susan sighed, spearing a sausage. 'And you'll miss a class eventually.'

'Listen to the mother hen,' Hannah said, in a slightly mocking way. 'As if it's my fault I can't sleep ... I'm not the one who thinks aloud at one a.m. in the morning!'

'I didn't know you heard that,' Susan muttered, a blush creeping up her face.

'Well, I did. Do.' Hannah shoved a forkful of food into her mouth.

'Why didn't you tell me, then?'

Hannah looked at her for a moment before swallowing. 'Believe it or not, hearing you ramble about sheep and cotton candy is rather amusing. Especially when the topic is cannibalism,' she grinned. "Face it, Susan. You're barking."

'But you can't possibly say that it doesn't make sense,' Susan exclaimed, mock-hurt. She glanced at her wristwatch. 'Five minutes,' she said shortly. They used about four minutes to eat, and then they ran, Hannah for History of Magic and Susan for Arithmancy. Just as she reached the last staircase, however, Hannah bumped into someone. The impact caused her to fall backwards, hitting the ground - more precisely, the landing between the stairs - with too much power for it not to hurt.

Luckily her bag softened her fall to a certain degree. The fact that the other person had fallen as well made her feel slightly better in a way.

'Watch where you're going,' she said curtly, getting to her feet. The other person - blonde, pale, and currently wearing Slytherin robes and a look of contempt on his face - was scowling up at her.

'Shove it, Mudblood,' he spat. Draco Malfoy, of course. The overall nasty git who went around and bullied people because he could. The insult didn't really bother Hannah as much as it would have done a year ago, but that was mostly because she remembered the incident on the train after the end of last term. Once you've seen someone as a slug-like entity, they've got to have a very good insult to be threatening. And being called 'Mudblood' - no matter how horrible that was in itself - just isn't the same when you imagine the person who called you that as a slug. Translated from a slug perspective, he had actually called her 'muffin' or something equally edible, as slugs ate dirt. Or maybe that was earthworms. Hannah made a face. It didn't make much of a difference, really, because both were slimy and neither of them had legs. She wondered briefly if slugs had a spine.

'Do slugs have spines?' she asked aloud.

Malfoy just stared at her.

'Never mind,' Hannah said, rolling her eyes. He sent her another look of utter confusion mixed with contempt before he got up and hurried out of sight. At that particular moment, her memory seemed to have picked up the fact that the clock was already way past nine, and she had a class to attend.

'Professor Binns, sir,' Hannah said, slightly out of breath. They should make gymnastics a regular subject in this school, she thought. 'Sorry I'm late.'

Binns sent her a slightly disapproving look. 'Just don't let it happen again,' he said, before he droned on as though she didn't exist. Relieved, Hannah sat down on her usual seat beside Ernie. For a few moments, she tried to listen to the professor, but her brain shut him out after ten seconds flat in self defense.

Oh well, Hannah thought. It wasn't as though she was afraid of missing anything important; the last interesting thing he had said was about the Chamber of Secrets, and that was almost four years ago. Ernie pushed a piece of parchment towards her. Curious, she picked it up.

What happened? it read.

Bumped into Malfoy, she wrote in her usual messy scrawl on the other side of the paper, before giving it back. Ernie read the note and frowned. He tore another piece from the parchment on his desk, and wrote a reply.

Are you all right? Do you want me to beat him up?

Hannah looked at him in disbelief. 'No!' she exclaimed in a half-whisper. 'Are you mad?'

'Of course not,' Ernie muttered, looking rather put-upon. 'I just don't want that prat to get away with what he did!' Then he paused, frowning. 'What did he do, anyway?'

'Oh, you know,' Hannah said airily. 'The usual. Ran straight into me, knocking us both down, before calling me a Mudblood -'

'That little -' Ernie began loudly, forgetting that there was a class going on.

'Mister Maliman,' Professor Binns said gravely. 'Please refrain from talking in class.' Then he went on again, as though nothing had happened.

Hannah tried to refrain from laughing. Instead, she snorted.

'Maliman,' she repeated quietly.

'Sod off,' Ernie whispered, annoyed. 'And I still think Malfoy deserves to get beaten up.'

'Never said he doesn't, either,' Hannah muttered. 'I just don't think it's a good idea, with Crabbe and Goyle being his bodyguards.'

'Right.'

'Besides,' she continued, with a look of triumph on her face, 'I think I scared him.'

'What did you do now?' There was an undertone of exasperation in his voice. Hannah wondered briefly if she should be insulted, before deciding against it.

'I just asked him if slugs have spines, and then he just stared at me and left.' Now that she thought about it, Hannah was fairly sure slugs actually didn't have spines, if she remembered the biology from her old school right. Then again, she was never one to remember anything at all, let alone correctly. Hannah made a face. Whatever, she thought. It's not as if I'm going to be a zoologist or anything. The thought was immediately replaced by pride, because she actually knew what a zoologist was.

'He probably thinks you're a loony,' Ernie commented. 'And I can't exactly blame him.'

Hannah stuck out her tongue at him, before slipping her hand into her bag to retrieve her copy of the Guide to Advanced Transfiguration so that she could do some last-minute fact-checking for her essay; she had worked on it into the wee hours of the morning, and she wasn't about to get a bad grade because she had forgotten to explain that yes, the parrot was really supposed to turn into a toad, and not the other way around. Suddenly, something sharp grazed her fingers.

'Ouch!' she hissed, and pulled her hand back quickly. The tips of her fingers were wet, and there were two reasons: a) she had cut them up, and was bleeding, and b) they were smeared with black ink. It was what she had cut herself on, she realized: her now smashed inkpot. Hannah closed her eyes and grit her teeth to keep from saying something she'd regret. She didn't even dare to take a look at the state of her Transfiguration book. With a soft moan - soft enough, at any rate, to be overlooked by Professor Binns - she slammed her head onto the desk. Not too forcefully, but still enough for it to hurt.

'Hannah, what's wrong?' Ernie whispered, concerned. She turned her head to look at him, without lifting it off the desk.

'My bag,' Hannah said, gritting her teeth again, 'is full of ink.'

~

Mum,

How are you?

I guess it's kind of lame to start a letter like that, but I can't think of anything else to start. This week has been okay, I guess ... nothing out of the ordinary has happened, really, except for Draco Malfoy. I bumped into him this morning and fell on my back so that my inkpot was smashed over my book. The book died.

Mum, can you buy me another copy? Please?

It's called 'Guide to Advanced Transfiguration'. (If you don't have the chance to get it, please owl me - the next lesson is in four days, and it'd be nice to know, at least, by then.) I know I could've ordered it, but Susan says ordering is slower than buying it the usual way. Just go to the Leaky Cauldron - remember that small, cramped bar thingie in London? - and talk to the barman. Tim or something. I'm sure he'll let you in. Thanks in advance!

Love,

Hannah