Archive of Our Own

“She’s a strange looking thing, isn’t she?” Petunia Dursley said consideringly, her face twisting up. She watched the three-year-old girl twist and turn in her sleep from where she lay curled up in Dudley’s old crib. “All copper and bone on that one.”

“Nothing a better haircut and a proper dress can’t fix,” Vernon said mildly, not looking up from the morning paper. “Just because she came from those freaks doesn’t mean she’s got to be one herself, not if I’ve got anything to say about it. She just needs a firm hand, Pet, some hard work and good manners.”

“You think?” Petunia asked hopefully. He always knew just what to say. “You’re the one who didn’t want to keep her in the first place.” She hadn’t wanted the girl either, but she knew what would happen if they didn’t do as they’d been asked– told, really– and oh, but how it had hurt, seeing that little girl with heaps of wild red hair and the widest eyes, looking just the same as her mother had as a child.

“Of course,” her husband assured her. “I’m telling you, we’re getting a stipend for keeping her. I didn’t want her in our house, but we’ve got her now, and we might as well get our money’s worth. We put a bit of it towards a good strict school, start her early on some practical skills– it’s not like she’s going to be cut out for much else– nothing that could get her set on that sort of track… Pet, we could have a perfectly respectable family again.”

Petunia nodded, ideas already forming in her mind. Some freakish child showing up in their house with no notice was strange, but generously taking in an orphan and getting her back on a proper path was how they became truly good samaritans. She’s not quite right, Petunia could already hear herself explaining to the sympathetic simpering of Mrs. Number Six. Parents were drunks. But even so, we just couldn’t let her go to an orphanage. “That’s just right,” she said fervently. “Perfectly respectable.”

And thus our heroine grew up perfectly, respectably, passably tolerated and nothing less or more. 

The guest bedroom remained just so, especially with how often Vernon’s sister came to visit while Dudley was young, and later it was Dudley’s friends using the room, and a few shelves worth of Dudley’s things inevitably ended up there. They hadn’t bought the house expecting a second child, so they made do with what they had. The cupboard under the stairs was carefully cleaned and freshly painted, a pile of old quilts and pillows on top of a thin cot mattress and a strand of Christmas lights strung up about the walls. It was suitable, especially for such a small child. How much room could the little thing really need? She seemed perfectly content and comfortable in her little nook.

Petunia’s status in the neighbourhood rapidly rose to the status of entirely untarnishable . She’d taken in a hopeless case of an orphan, and she was moulding her into something fitting of a normal society.

“Oh, just go up to bed, darling,” Petunia simpered, pressing a kiss to her son’s head where wispy blond curls had formed. She’d picked up a few children’s books when she’d gone for groceries earlier that day with the hope that her darling Diddy would be interested in learning his letters, but no such luck. He’d been fantastic for a bit, going through each letter and syllable with her like she remembered doing with her mother when she herself was a child, but he was a bright boy who was easily bored by introductory sorts of tasks, and had quickly lost interest. “You’re doing just wonderfully,” she assured him with another kiss, “and soon enough you’ll be starting school anyways.”

She let Vernon carry the boy up to bed and tuck him in, but she stayed on the couch, though she did take a moment to locate a rather large glass of wine. “Delilah!” she called, inspiration and boredom striking her, and the little girl toddled out of the cupboard with a smile. “We’re going to read a story. This one’s called Hansel and Gretel…”

Tom started talking a bit after Lila turned five, when she’d been with her Aunt and Uncle for nearly two years.

I’ve got a bit of a green thumb, I suppose, Lila explained when Tom asked why she was digging in the dirt in early October. It’s enough for Aunt Petunia to keep me around instead of tossing me in an… er, one of those homes you go to when your parents die like mine.

An orphanage?

Yes, one of those. Say, Tom, how do you know things I don’t know if you’re up in my head?

I am not you, he answered simply and– what she later learned was– disdainfully. 

Are you my friend, then? she asked hopefully. I haven’t got any friends, unless you count Mrs. Number Twelve’s daughter. She’s my age, but she’s not very nice, and friends should be nice, I think.

I am not your friend.

Are you nice, though?

Tom hadn’t said anything for quite a while, and Lila had begun to wonder if she’d thought up the whole thing herself. I am going to help you , was all he told her, and with her childhood innocence on her sleeve, she smiled and asked nothing further.

Aunt Petunia gave me forty pounds to spend at the secondhand shop, Lila informed Tom proudly as she skipped down the street. We’ve got that garden party next weekend and she wants me to have a nice dress and cardigan, and I’ve outgrown all my old jumpers, so I can get a few of those as well.

Good, he snipped. It’s about time you look presentable.

You talk like it’s my fault, she said, rolling her eyes. And your idea of presentable is silly. I’m nine, Tom, I can’t run around in grown-up clothes all the time. Besides, I’d just get them dirty as soon as I went outside.

She’d worn Dudley’s hand-me-downs for a few years, but Aunt Petunia quickly realised that they hung about her smaller form like the swaying branches of a weeping willow, and she’d gotten some comment about it from one of the neighbours, so she was quickly sent to the charity shops to remedy the issue while Aunt Petunia spun a tale about nightclothes and gardening clothes and how she was always reminding Lila that the disposable clothes were only for certain times, and it was Lila who didn’t listen, or something like that.

She spent exactly thirty-one pounds at the secondhand shop, twenty-eight on clothes and three on a ratty old book about poisonous flowers, and she pocketed the other nine. She’d have a use for them eventually, she was sure. She was back in time for Saturday brunch, as that was the one day that Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon let Dudley sleep in. 

“Delilah!” Aunt Petunia called in her shrill tone barely five minutes after she’d set down her new things. “Get in here and watch the bacon.”

“Yes, Aunt Petunia,” Lila shouted back, scowling while her aunt couldn’t see. 

Lila didn’t like cooking much, though there were also worse things, like cleaning. Especially cleaning Dudley’s room, or worse, Dudley’s bathroom. Frying up a half-dozen eggs was Heaven compared to that. She didn’t do all of the cooking or cleaning, of course, and she was very happy about that. She handled breakfast and lunch, and Aunt Petunia handled supper, which was when most of the real cooking happened anyways. Frying eggs and bacon wasn’t too hard, and making plates of sandwiches was even easier than that. Similarly, Lila cleaned her room and Dudley’s room and the guest room if it needed cleaning, and Aunt Petunia cleaned the rest, though it was usually Lila who did things like dusting or sweeping.

Are you my Prince Charming, Tom? she’d asked once. 

Absolutely not.

Why not?

You think you’re Snow White? he laughed, in that slippery, charming way of his, soft guffaws taking over his presence in her mind for a moment. 

Cinderella, Lila corrected. It was entirely obvious, really. And Aunt Petunia is my evil stepmother. She makes me do all of the chores and keeps me in a cupboard, but you’re the one who helps me get out.

Oh, my darling little Briar Rose, he said. Let me tell you of the fairy– nay, the Wizard– who cursed you stay within these walls of thorns…

She knew when the man Tom called Dumbledore arrived on her eleventh birthday by the shriek Aunt Petunia let out. “Get in here,” she could hear her hissing. “Don’t just loiter on the doorstep– the neighbours could see!”

“Ah, thank you, dear girl,” replied the mild and chiding tones of an old man from only a few feet from her cupboard door. “I’m sure you know I’m here about Lila.” He sounded gentle, especially beside Aunt Petunia’s sharp distress. 

Is that him? Lila asked.

Not sure why you’d be so excited, Tom sulked. But yes, that’s him, the old coot. Don’t fall for the feeble old man bit, he’s as bad as the rest except he hides behind the eccentric exterior.

What’s ‘eccentric’ mean?

She could feel Tom grimacing. You’ll figure it out, promise. Now, do you remember your lines?  

Lila groaned. Not this again. Yes, I remember the lines, not that you’ve told me why it matters so much. ‘Sides, I’ve never hurt anyone, except for that one time I punched Piers, but that’s ‘cause he was being all weird. 

I’ll tell you why one day, Tom told her airily, another promise he would eventually keep, but probably not in time for her to still be interested in the answer.

“Fine,” Lila muttered aloud, kicking at the underside of the step with her toe. 

The door to the cupboard swung open, and Lila sat up straight, pulling one of her blankets up over her lap. “Yes, Aunt Petunia?”

“There’s a man here for you,” she barked. “Get up, girl, get up. Set on the kettle. I didn’t raise you to be rude to a guest, even one of his sort.”

She finally got a good look at the wisened old man. He had a Santa Claus beard of baby’s breath that reached halfway down his chest and a whole mane of white hair to match. He wore little spectacles low on his nose, and he looked at her carefully down the bridge of them, a small smile starting to form as he took in her wide eyes and polite manners. She was tempted to smile back, but today really wasn’t the day to get Tom angry, and he’d been very insistent when it came to Dumbledore.

This must be what ‘eccentric’ meant, she decided. He wore a bathrobe over his shirt and trousers, and the bathrobe was orchid splashed over tiger lilies. Very strange indeed.

“Why in Merlin’s name are you in a cupboard, dear girl?” Dumbledore asked, and Tom was muttering in the back of her mind about meddlesome men and something called a facade of sympathy.

“It’s my bedroom, sir,” she told him. “Just this way, if you don’t mind. Uncle Vernon usually drinks black tea, but Aunt Petunia likes green tea. Would either of those be alright?”

“What about you?” He peered over his spectacles again.

“I like dandelion tea, sir,” she said brightly, clicking on the stovetop and setting the kettle to boil. She set her own cup first, as he hadn’t said anything yet. 

“And do you like your bedroom, Lila?” he asked then, sounding a little hesitant to ask.

“It’s not too bad, I guess,” she said with a frown, shrugging her shoulders. “It’s cosy. I like my Christmas lights, too, and Aunt Petunia gave me a bit of cork so I can put up pressed flowers on the wall. I’m not particularly large, sir, and I haven’t got a lot of stuff, so it’s enough for me.”

He nodded, seeming to accept what she said, and the kettle began to whistle. “I believe I will take some of that dandelion tea, as well.”

She poured the tea carefully, as the kettle was still a good bit larger than her head, and there had been exactly one– and that was one too many– accidents in her childhood of dropping a hot kettle and regretting every moment of it until Tom had helped her make the burns disappear. He continued to watch her as she took a seat and he took four sugar cubes from the bowl. 

Is he always this unnerving? she asked Tom, swallowing awkwardly and keeping her eyes firmly on her drink.

Usually worse, Tom replied drily. You can speak first, you know.

“Who are you, sir? You know who I am, but…”

“You may call me Headmaster Dumbledore,” he told her gently, and she was once again tempted to smile, though she pushed it down in favour of her promise to Tom.

“ Headmaster ?” she repeated warily. “Is that like ‘doctor’? What are you here for? Did Aunt Petunia call you in here to have a look at me?”

“No, no,” the Headmaster assured her, looking somewhat bemused by her concern.

“I don’t believe you,” Lila said firmly, her lips pursed disbelievingly. She’d dreamt parts of Tom’s memories of his first meeting with the wizard, but he’d looked much different back then, and she doubted she could ever sound like Tom. He’d been so cold as a child, which was just silly. Almost everything died in the cold, aside from the evergreens and hellebores– she hadn’t told Tom, but she always thought of him as a hellebore. She wasn’t any of those sorts of things, though. It wasn’t that she had an issue with a little bit of cold, but if he was winter, then she was early spring, the last bits of chill rather than the worst of it, or autumn– its anticipation.

So she wasn’t envious of his coldness, but he had a confidence and authority behind his words that she wondered if she’d be able to match one day. For now, though, it was better not to try, even if he wanted her to. She could still say her lines, just in a voice that would make sense for her. “Aunt Petunia wants me looked at, doesn’t she? Tell me the truth!”

And maybe there was no ringing force behind her words, but there was a frantic desperation that she knew Tom couldn’t have managed, and that was good enough. The old wizard just kept his pleasant smile, though she could see his eye twitching, and Tom was laughing from his place behind her mind.

“Who are you?” she asked then, deflated and exhausted and quiet.

“Headmaster Dumbledore,” he told her again. “I run a school called Hogwarts, and I’ve come to let you know that you have a place there for the upcoming year should you like it. Your name has been down for the school since before you were born, and it’s only fair that you know about it now.”

She kept her eyes on him as she frowned sceptically. She wet her lips, chewed the soft flesh inside her cheek. Finally she shook her head. “No, I don’t believe you,” she said, sharp and wary. “You can’t kid me. The asylum, that’s where you’re from, isn’t it? ‘Head Master’, yes, of course– well, I’m not going, see? I’m not going and you can’t make me!”

Dumbledore had turned rather sickly as her little monologue went on, but his only outward reaction was to take in and let out a long and rather exasperated breath. “I am not from an asylum, my dear girl,” he said calmly, and she didn’t understand what Tom despised so much about the man who didn’t lose so much as half of his temper or composure even when she was being so dreadfully rude to him. He seemed like a lovely sort of man, a bit of cosmos or yarrow that wasn’t going to give up easily. “Nor will I or anyone else make you go anywhere, Hogwarts included. Hogwarts, however, is a school for special people–”

“Oh, I’m not retarded,” Lila corrected him politely. “There must be some confusion.”

“I know that you are not, Lila. Hogwarts is not that sort of school. It is a school of magic.”

She froze like a deer in the headlights, just as Tom was reminding her to do in the back of her mind. Her eyes flickered between Dumbledore’s, looking for something behind them that she knew she wouldn’t find. “Magic,” she breathed. “It’s… it’s magic, what I can do?” 

“What is it that you can do?”

“All sorts of things,” she whispered.

That’s it, Tom was whispering to her. Careful now.

“I can make things move without touching them,” she confided in him, leaning forward with wide eyes as he began to lean back. “I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who hurt me. I can make them hurt, too, if I want.”

Any colour left in the Headmaster’s face had drained out of it by now, and his gaze had gone from gentle and patient to the look of a man so deeply disturbed by the object of his attention that he’d nearly lost control over his facial muscles. 

“I am assuming you go to school now, Lila?” was the only thing he said once he’d collected himself, and she blinked.

“Yes, sir,” she agreed. “Lady Catharine’s Academy. It used to be a finishing school.”

“Then you must know, perhaps better than most, that a school has its rules,” he cautioned her. “Hogwarts is not the exception to that. These things that you are describing, hurting people… Lila, this will not be taught or tolerated at Hogwarts.”

Do you want me to get all cold and angry now? she asked Tom. It would seem a bit strange, you know.

Oh, say what you want, Tom groused, as though she hadn’t been doing fantastically so far.

Well, I will .

She closed off, sitting back in her chair and jutting out her chin like the older girls at school did when they judged the younger ones, unimpressed raised brows and slightly parted lips. “Yes, sir,” she said without emotion. If he thought he’d made any way with her, he’d lost it now. Besides, he’d gotten upset with her when she’d directly claimed to hurt people who were hurting her. Where was her concern? Even if it wasn’t true, she was still upset about it.

“At Hogwarts,” Dumbledore continued, “you will learn how to harness your magic, how to use it and how to control it, just as your parents did back in the day.”

“You knew my parents, sir?” she asked, letting a little hope into her tone, not all of it conjured, either. “And they were magical? No, they couldn’t be,” she denied. “If they had magic, they wouldn’t have died .” She spat the last word out. Tom was going to be quite proud of her for that.

“Yes, I did,” he confirmed, “and they were very much magical. Two of the finest witches and wizards Hogwarts had seen in years. May I take it that you are accepting your invitation?” he asked then. 

“Of course I am!” Her face fell. “Only… I’m afraid Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon won’t much want to pay for me to go to magic school. They don’t like when I do weird stuff.”

“Your tuition is already paid,” he said. “Now, how would you like to get your school supplies?”

“I can do that on my own if you tell me how, sir,” she said, emotionless again. “I’m quite used to doing things on my own.” 

He complied.

“And sir,” she added, as he was on his way out the door– the back one, as he’d explained that he didn’t walk or drive to the door, and if she could keep the neighbours from seeing him, it would be far preferable– “I, erm…”

“Yes?”

“I can speak to snakes,” she said, as though she wanted to let the words out in a rush but had held them back, releasing them one at a time like clay pigeons to shoot. “They find me, whisper things. They do whatever I ask of them. Is that normal– for people like me?”

It was like the wind had been knocked out of the elderly wizard in a swift kick. “No,” he choked out, barely louder than a breath. “No, Lila, even for a witch, I must say that is nothing of the sort.”

The back door slammed.

Lila let out the breath she’d been holding for too long and let her shoulders drop. She turned around and found herself face to face with Aunt Petunia.

“I’ll be going to school this September,” she said.

“I suppose you will.”

“I can write down the instructions for the garden,” she offered next. “I’ll be here for all the neighbourhood parties this summer, and Christmas as well. There’s not too much to do until then.”

“Alright.”

She took that better than expected, Lila wondered later that evening. I thought she’d snap, finally blow up and burst or something. 

I suppose she knows more than she lets on, Tom decided. Now, what exactly are you doing?

I’m replanting my white roses, she explained. They weren’t supposed to grow particularly large, but everything I grow ends up bigger than expected, so they have to be placed farther apart. 

“Holly and phoenix feather,” Ollivander announced, offering a wand to her. “A proper hero’s wand, if I say so myself. Eleven inches, pleasantly supple–”

The wand exploded.

“Oh,” he said a bit disappointedly, picking shards of wood out of his hair. “I suppose that was not the one. No matter, let’s try another. No, have a go. See if any call to you. It seems your magic is rather picky, Miss Potter, and a witch should always listen to her magic.”

She glanced around awkwardly. All the boxes looked exactly the same, and there were thousands. She walked around the room waiting to feel something, and when she didn’t, she grabbed the first box she saw.

“A spalted maple!” Ollivander exclaimed, and she perked up. “Seven and three-quarters inches, quite soft and whippy. Those lovely little lines are the result of–”

“Fungal decay!” Lila interrupted, nearly jumping up and down in excitement. She knew she’d find a cool wand. “What does it mean for a wand?”

“Internal conflict, my dear,” he replied in sheer delight. “Though, perhaps in fairer terms, the highly important ability to see things from many different perspectives. Now try it, try it.”

“Oh, I don’t know if it’s going to be right,” she fretted. “I… well, I actually just grabbed a random one.”

“No such thing as random in a wand shop!”

“Alright,” she agreed reluctantly, and pulled out the wand, and it was fresh gardenias and the sun streaming through hung-up laundry and dandelion tea and spiderwebs glistening with dew. It was the most beautiful feeling in the world. She waved it in a little circle, and out of the tip flew tendrils of vines which curled up around her wrist like bracelets.

“Oh, it’s been ages since I’ve had a witch or wizard end up with a good spalted maple. You’re in for a difficult path, Miss Potter, but if you balance it… oh, you will do great things. Spalted maple is quite temperamental, likely to either love or hate each magic it tries. Are there any areas you were more interested in than others?”

“I like plants,” she hedged. “I heard there’s a whole branch of study for magical plants. I’d probably like that.”

“Herbology! And likely Potions as well. Oh, this wand will do wonderfully for that. With the unicorn hair as well? Yes, quite picky, but quite dependable as well, and driven when pleased.” 

“I’m Malfoy, by the way,” said the boy with hair the colour of a beech tree’s leaves in autumn. “Draco Malfoy. And you– is your family magical? I don’t think they should be letting the other sort in, if you ask me .”

“They’re magical,” she confirmed, Tom’s voice in her head reminding her not to burn bridges.

“That’s good,” he said with a sharp nod. “What House do you think you’ll be in?” She opened her mouth to answer, but he was already continuing on. “I’ll be in Slytherin, of course. My whole family’s been there…”

Lila sighed.

I haven’t seen a bluer or bronzer mind in years, came a voice in her head that was neither hers nor Tom’s, and she nearly shrieked. 

I’m supposed to go to Slytherin, Lila thought to the hat. Ravenclaw won’t do, sorry.

Won’t do at all? the hat asked slyly. 

She chewed at her lip. Tom hadn’t said anything against Ravenclaw in particular, just that he wanted her in Slytherin and he refused to be stuck on the head of a Lion or a Puff. I mean, I suppose…” she edged.

“RAVENCLAW!” the hat screamed as soon as it had taken confirmation from her moment of weakness. Oh, Tom wasn’t going to be pleased. She set the hat back on the stool with a parting glare and headed over to the table on the far side of the hall.

She took a seat next to the girl she’d met on the train who’d fixed her glasses and then promptly turned on her heel and left. “It was Hermione, right?” she whispered.

“Yes!” Her excited tone was much louder than Lila’s, and she flushed. “And you didn’t tell me you were Lila Potter,” she added in an accusatory whisper.

“It didn’t come up?” she tried. “Sorry. I didn’t want you to look at me different. It’s happened every time so far.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Hermione said with a lot of certainty. “I mean, you are in ‘Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts’ and ‘Modern Magical History’, but even so, you’re eleven like the rest of us.”

“Thanks,” she said, and she meant it. “Did you know your name is associated with crocuses?”

The other girl looked a bit surprised. “Erm, no, I didn’t. That’s really interesting, though. Are there any flowers associated with your name?”

She shrugged, smiling at the question. “There’s a type of dahlia. And Lila is close enough to Lily to count for those.” She shook her head back in an attempt to get her bangs off of her forehead and gasped quietly when she saw the high glass ceilings from a new angle. She hadn’t realised the darkness above them was the sky.

“They’re bewitched to look that way,” the other witch told her. “I read all about it in Hogwarts: A History . You can borrow my copy if you’d like.”

“How did they do it?” Lila asked, ignoring the offer so that she wouldn’t have to turn her down. “Is it the actual sky outside?”

“Not quite,” Hermione told her. “They’re charmed to follow the star progressions in the universe. So in a sense, yes, if you went outside right now, you would see the same constellations in the same places. But even if it was overcast outside and you couldn’t see a single star, you would still see them correctly in here.”

“I want one,” Lila sighed, resting her chin on her hand dreamily. “I hope our dorms have the same effect. Imagine waking up to the sunrise every morning without having to sleep outside, or falling asleep watching the stars.”

“Lord, I hope so, too. Er, Merlin, I mean.” Hermione frowned. “I’m not picking those up very well.”

“I’m not either,” she said, patting the girl’s shoulder. “You’ll get it eventually.” She pulled her book from the inside pocket of her robes and tuned out the rest of the sorting. A few moments later, Hermione did just the same.

“I watch you all day, but I have no eyes. I love you, but I have no heart. What am I?” asked the bronze eagle door-knocker on the entrance to the Ravenclaw tower.

“A daisy!” Lila answered, remembering an entry in her gardening encyclopaedia about the ‘day’s eyes’ eventually being simplified into daisies. It wasn’t a particularly hard riddle, but she was still glad to get to think about it. If answering questions about flowers was how she got into the dormitory every day, at least she wouldn’t have trouble with it.

“Correct,” the eagle declared, and the door swung open.

Ravenclaw had individual rooms for every student, though two rooms could be combined into one upon request, which she saw two girls jump on immediately. It seemed silly. If she shared a room with some other girl, she’d never be able to really get time to herself, even if it was Hermione, seemed quite prepared to live in the library.

“Miss Potter,” Snape nearly whispered, his voice smooth and nearly artificial like the petals of a begonia. A white one, she thought, thinking of the waxy dark leaves beside the pale, shimmery blossoms. Aunt Petunia loved them; Lila thought they were a bit tacky. “Our new… celebrity.”

Her finger itched to grab one of her books from her bag like she used to do during particularly tedious classes at Lady Catharine’s. She had a new one on magical plants that interacted with magical animals, and she was only halfway through the description of the Elspeth Rose that could turn common butterflies into ghosts– and she’d hardly gotten to the interesting parts!

“Tell me,” he said sharply, and her attention snapped back to him, “what would I get if I added the powdered root of Asphodel to an infusion of Wormwood?”

“Like… in general?” she asked in bewilderment. The question had taken her entirely by surprise. She thought he’d be asking questions about proper cauldron usage and which ladle to use for what, which, frankly, she had no interest in knowing. “Well, asphodel root can be used for all sorts of things– painkillers, mostly– they used to use it to treat tuberculosis, but I don’t remember if it worked all that well. It’s fantastic for treating menstrual cramps as well, by the way.” She could hear Tom groaning, but she continued. “Wormwood is usually just used for stomach pains and upset nerves. Mixing two pain-relieving herbs… I mean, you’d get pretty tired. Probably a pretty good sleep, though.”

“What you would get, Miss Potter, would be the Draught of Living Death, one of the most powerful sleeping potions in existence. What is the difference between Monkshood and Wolfsbane?”

“Those are the same,” she answered immediately. “It’s called Monkshood due to its outward appearance, as the petals come down to form a sort of hood, but it’s called Wolfsbane because the Romans used to dip their arrows in it before they shot wolves. It’s a deadly poison, see, and it’s very hard to kill a wolf. Or I’d assume so, at least, if they had to resort to poison. Same reason it’s called Leopardsbane, but it’s also called Aconite and the Queen of Poisons, and something else I’m forgetting. But in small amounts it’s medicinal!” she added. Then frowned. “ Really small amounts.”

 “I am pleased to discover that at least one member of this class has done their reading,” he said softly, his lips hardly moving. “And where would I find a bezoar?”

She looked at him blankly. Beside her, Hermione’s hand shot up above her head as though she were trying to grab at the ceiling from her seat.

“No? It appears fame,” Snape sneered, “is not everything. For your information, Miss Potter, a bezoar is a stone found in the stomach of a goat.” He snapped his attention away from Lila and back to the rest of the class. “Well? Why don’t I don’t see you all writing this down?”

You should really be at least trying to network with some of the Slytherins, Tom pleaded, not that he would admit that was what he was doing. He mostly just sounded pissed and more than a little exasperated. For Tom, that was essentially begging on his hands and knees.

Can you do it? she suggested, her face twisting up at the thought of intentionally wasting her time talking to Malfoy and his goons.

You want me to do it? Oh, he sounded far too excited.

You are not allowed to ruin my reputation or claim every other moment of my life is an act, she told him sternly. You are not allowed to make promises I wouldn’t follow through on. You are not allowed to insult Hermione. Was there anything else? Or be anything worse than ambiguous and ignorant when it comes to blood politics. That’s about it. I trust you, Tom, you know that. I just also know you have a tendency to get carried away.

He didn't respond for a minute. I appreciate that, Lila. I will agree to your terms.

They’d only done it a couple of times, where he’d become the primary actor within her mind and she’d slipped to the backseat where he usually sat with a relative level of patience. Once because Dudley and his gang had hurt her enough that she didn’t have a good grip on her emotions, and Tom, who didn’t really experience the physical pain that could happen to her body, and wasn’t one for emotional pain regardless, took over on instinct and confronted them. They left her alone after that, mostly. Another was when a teacher had cornered her several years back, before Lady Catherine’s, actually, about potentially contacting Child Services, and she’d gotten Tom to sweet-talk her into dropping her concerns. The only times other than that were when Tom was trying to teach her how to channel her magic, and he’d take over the body so that she could experience using magic without having figured it out on her own, and she’d mimic the feeling.

It was weird to have someone else using her body, but it was Tom . He’d been with her for nearly her entire life, and besides, she felt kind of bad. He had to ride around in her head while she made all the decisions most of the time; she could tolerate it every once in a while.

She retreated into her mind and told herself stories like she did when she was little, stories of princesses and dragons and magic like in the stories Aunt Petunia used to teach her to read. Not all of it was a story anymore.

Professor McGonagall was one of Lila’s favourite teachers so far, even if she hadn’t managed any of the transfigurations they’d covered in class. She’d gotten the incantations and wand-work down, but her magic didn’t want to perform the spells, and her wand didn’t want to accommodate them, and she didn’t see a need to force it. 

But she liked the woman’s sharp and direct manner, and more than that, she liked how McGonagall let Hermione demonstrate her knowledge during class. She ran her classroom by posing question after question to the class until everyone ended up at the conclusions they needed to reach, and a good half of the time the only student who volunteered to answer was Hermione, and when another student answered incorrectly or incompletely, she would let Hermione step in. She could see her friend blossoming under the attention.

McGonagall was also the only professor who hadn’t gone ballistic over teaching the Girl-Who-Lived, though she had grown a bit teary at one point when Lila had waited after class for Hermione to pack up her things. “You’re the spitting image of your mother, you know,” she’d told Lila with pride. “Your father’s eyes, though. He was one of my best students, always so talented in Transfiguration. When you smile, it’s like he’s right back in this room,” she’d added, a bit fiercely despite the shining eyes.

“What Houses were they in?” Lila had asked.

“Gryffindor, the both of them,” McGonagall had said. “But your father always said that your mother was meant to be a Ravenclaw, and now here you are. Perhaps James had a bit of seer blood we never knew about.” 

It was only Tom’s unimpressed tone in her mind that kept her from bursting into tears or spontaneously hugging the professor.

Really the only issue was that while transfiguration was sort of cool in theory, Lila didn’t see the point in it. Why would she need a matchstick-needle? Why would she need a mouse-snuffbox? It was mind-numbing to trudge through the readings, and nearly hopeless to think she’d get the spells to work properly, so she didn’t worry herself about it too much.

Defence Against the Dark Arts seemed very boring, but Quirrell was an idiot, and so she simply brought a book in her bag and read it in her lap while he stuttered through his lectures. Besides, Tom always got weird when she went to DADA, and she didn’t feel like dealing with him, so she let him retreat into the very back of her consciousness while she read. 

History of Magic was taught by a ghost, which should have been extremely cool, but was in reality just the opposite. Tom told her that Binns had been there since his time, and Lila had gasped and told him that wow, that means he’s really old! and Tom hadn’t talked to her for a day or two. On the bright side, she at least didn't have to cast any spells in History, so she wasn’t behind the rest of her class. On the less bright side, the main reason that she wasn’t behind was because they hadn’t talked about anything of importance or relevance.

“There’s been a break-in at Gringotts!” Hermione exclaimed a little over a month into school.

“Is that special?” she asked, leaning over several classmates to snatch a second croissant from the platter in the middle of the table. “In the Muggle world, we’ve got break-ins everywhere, all the time.”

Hermione raised an amused brow. “Everywhere, all the time?” she repeated sceptically. “Whatever. Yes, it’s special. Gringotts is the Goblin-run bank. It’s never been broken into before– successfully, that is. Everyone who’s ever tried has been… well, they don’t ever come out of the bank.”

“Wow,” Lila said. “Remind me not to rob the bank. What did they take?”

“That’s just it,” Hermione said with a frown. “They didn’t take anything at all. The vault they broke into had already been emptied.”

Tom perked up at her words, but Lila had already lost interest.

Professor Flitwick was a tiny wizard who reminded her a bit too much of Thumbelina in a walnut shell, who stood on a stack of thick tomes just to see over his podium to teach the class. He had nearly fallen off of that very stack when he got to Lila’s name on the register the first day. 

“Wingardium Leviosa!” a redheaded boy at the next table over was shouting, waving his wand like he was trying to create enough wind to make the feather float by entirely natural means.

“You’re saying it wrong,” Hermione snapped, turning away from Lila to face him. “It’s Win- gar -dium Levi- o -sa. The middle bits are nice and long.”

“Oh, you do it, if you’re so clever.”

Hermione huffed, flicking her bushy brown hair over her shoulder and flicking her wand, pronouncing the spell flawlessly. Both her feather and the boy’s feather floated in the air together a few feet above their heads. Flitwick was beside himself with delight.

“Are you having trouble with the spell, Lila?” Hermione asked her, much gentler than she had with the Gryffindor.

Lila shrugged. “I’m saying it correctly, and my wand movements are correct, too. I think I’m alright.”

“Well, yes, but we could go through casting,” she suggested. “Spells are more than just words, of course. I’m sure with just a bit of time you could be floating the feather, too.”

“I don’t doubt you at all,” Lila agreed easily. “But I don’t care about charms that much. I’m fine with just knowing it in theory for now– I’ll either pick it up eventually or I won’t. It’s not particularly often that I find myself needing to float things.”

Hermione shook her head. “I don’t understand you,” she muttered, but let the subject drop, instead floating her feather over to tickle Lila’s cheek until she laughed.

On October fourteenth began flying lessons, for which Lila was extremely excited, and Hermione was terribly frightened. When Lila stood over her broom she gasped, discovering that magical brooms were much like wands– the wood was still so alive with magic so that she could feel its presence, its pull. It flew into her hand without any sort of command, verbal or otherwise, and Hermione settled for a longsuffering sigh at Lila actually discovering a branch of magic to participate in, only for it to be one that they weren’t even being graded on.

Which wasn’t an entirely fair assessment. They’d also begun Astronomy a few weeks after the school year started, and Lila had been very eager for that, and it had all led to the two girls often going up to the observation towers for the hour or two that sat between sundown and curfew. Lila had also gotten to start Herbology, and it was everything she’d hoped for. Professor Sprout was a lovely middle-aged witch who reminded Lila of marigolds and sunshine, and it had become a habit for Lila to arrive early and stay late for each Herbology class to spend more time in the greenhouse and help the professor with whatever projects ot set-up she had going at the time, or even just wander around and badger her about the plants.

Hermione was doing a relatively impressive job of masking her envy as far as Lila’s immediate proficiency with Herbology-related spells. She quickly picked up the spells to make things grow faster, to water the plants to exactly their satisfaction, and, at one point, Hermione could have sworn she’d seen Lila convince a plant to pass her textbook to her, even if Lila denied it.

Flying, however, unlike the Herbology spells, was not something Lila already had practice with. Once Tom had started teaching her to control her magic as a child, she’d started pouring it into her plants each time she worked with them, which she realised was also the reason they grew so large. It should have occurred to her before, that it wasn’t just some strange side-effect of the garden being tended to by her, a witch, but rather the direct result of using magic on the flowers. Now that she knew, she bet she could make her plants grow loads faster! Flying, though, was brand new, and Lila was desperate to try it out.

She barely got to fly, though, because a few minutes in, Malfoy took it upon himself to take a… something that came in the form of a little red ball, from a boy who was in Lila’s Herbology class and was the only one to actually know more than her about magical plants– though she still had him beat on non-magical ones– and for some reason she decided to go get the little red ball back. She succeeded, returned it to its rightful owner, and received three nights of detention with Professor Flitwick, who was getting quite frustrated with the fact that she hadn’t successfully cast a single charm, and was really just using the detentions as an opportunity for forced tutoring.

It was worth it, though, for the chance to fly.

On Halloween night– Samhain , Tom corrected her, and she proceeded to ignore him– Quirrell ran into the hall in the middle of the feast and announced that there was a troll lost in the school, which just seemed sort of difficult to do. How did one lose a troll? Misplace a troll? How did they not know they had a troll in the building?

And Hermione! Hermione wasn’t in the Great Hall! The redheaded boy who’d been bothering her since school started had said something awful to her after Charms that day that Lila hadn’t heard, and Hermione had run to the girls’ bathroom in tears. 

Ignoring Tom’s very aggressively voiced disapproval, she slipped out of the hall while the prefects weren’t looking and headed towards her best friend. Besides, the troll was in the dungeons– a detour on the way to Ravenclaw tower wouldn’t hurt anyone.

Of course, as luck would have it, the troll was a far cry from the dungeons, and its grunting and growling was broken up only by Hermione’s shrieks. She picked up a chunk of porcelain that had broken off of one of the sinks and hurled it with all her might at the mirror, pulling the troll’s attention away from Hermione so she’d have time to make her escape, but then both of them were the subject of the troll’s ire, and that didn’t really seem all that much better.

Lila thought of Ollivander, of the bracelets of vines that her beautiful, beautiful spalted maple had gifted her the very first time she touched it, and she waved her wand. Out flew thick vines that wrapped the troll up like a Christmas present, regrowing each time it broke them off. “Do something!” she shouted, still sending more and more of the twisting switches into the mix. 

“Wingardium Leviosa!” Hermione shrieked, flustered, and the troll’s club rose into the air with the same grace as every feather Hermione had faced that year. She waited until the vines were fresh and strong, and then released the spell, and the club fell on the troll’s head. That combined with its bound knees and arms brought the troll to the ground, its head cracking the floor as it did.

“You faced a troll for me,” Hermione breathed, tear tracks still visible on her cheeks.

“‘Course, ‘Mione,” Lila slurred. Wow, she was really tired. Her eyelids were starting to droop and the floor seemed to sway beneath her feet as Tom’s scolding in the back of her mind started to fade out. “Any time.” 

She passed out right as the professors arrived.

She woke up to daisies and calla lilies and groaned, throwing her arm over her eyes to block out the fluorescents. She didn’t feel hurt, which was the positive in the whole situation, she thought, but Heavens, was she exhausted.

You idiot, Tom hissed. What in Merlin’s name could possibly possess you to do something so dangerous? You could have died. We both would have died. 

I’m sorry, Tom, she tried. I didn’t mean to worry you. But it was Hermione. I couldn’t just let her get hurt! Besides, we totally beat the troll. 

You nearly wiped out your magical reserves is what you did, he retorted, but before she could reply, Madam Pomfrey, the matron, pushed into the room and began tutting at her.

“Most foolish thing I’ve ever seen,” she scolded, breezing around the room in a tizzy and snatching three little bottles off of their respective shelves. “Two first years and a mountain troll. Sounds like the start of an awful joke. And those vines! Wherever did they come from?”

“When I first got my wand and Mr. Ollivander told me to try it out, I waved it and vines came out,” she explained. “So I just tried to do that again so that they’d fly around the troll. Hermione used the Levitating charm we’ve been learning, but I haven’t gotten that one yet, so I didn’t know what else to do. Y’know, I’m really tired, Madam Pomfrey. Do you think you could get these lights off so I can sleep?”

“Sleep isn’t what’s going to help you, dear. You’ve been asleep for the last sixteen hours. No, you’re going to need a good regimen of restorative potions, and you will not be casting any magic whatsoever for at least a week,” she said firmly.

That’s just silly, Lila complained in her mind. A week without magic? I’m at magic school.

God’s good fucking grace, Lila, you’re going to do exactly as she says, Tom ordered crossly, and Lila pouted. She thought Tom at the very least would understand how ridiculous all of this was. He loved magic even more than she did!

“Yes, ma’am,” she agreed reluctantly. “Do I have detentions or anything?”

“No, but if it was up to me you would,” she scolded. “Headmaster Dumbledore awarded fifty points to Ravenclaw. It’s like he’s trying to encourage this sort of behaviour in all you children just to make my job harder.”

Madam Pomfrey ended up threatening to confiscate her wand for a week just to ensure that she followed doctor’s orders, and it took Lila nearly in tears along with Dumbledore’s reassurance for the matron to let it drop. She could handle not doing magic for a week, but being without her wand? Her darling, beautiful wand? She would rather die.

Since she had very little to do, as she couldn’t even so much as attempt any of the spells she was supposed to be learning in class, she ended up asking Professor Sprout if she could use a bit of the grounds anywhere for a garden, and the Hufflepuff professor showed her to a small, walled off spot on the edge of the Forbidden Forest. The walls were crumbling, and one had fallen entirely, not to mention that the entire thing was overgrown with weeds and vines, but it was more than enough for Lila.

It used to be nicely maintained, Professor Sprout had lamented, back when Hogwarts had a team of groundskeepers and gardeners. This wasn’t a time that Lila could remember, though Tom piped up to say that they’d had a gardener back when he was at Hogwarts. The woman grew a bit teary when Lila started on about her ideas for the space, and promised to be whatever help she could.

She was getting used to being at Hogwarts, but it was still nice to finally have a chance to garden again like she did at home. There was a limit to her desire to wave her wand or write essays with feathers as pens, and once she ran out of interest, she just found herself missing the chance to get down in the dirt and make something real. The feather pens were really rather silly, as were the spells, if she was being honest. Tom had taught her loads of magic before she’d had even a wand, so she didn’t know what exactly the incantations were supposed to be doing.

Robes were still silly as well, and entirely impractical if one wished to garden. There was absolutely nothing one could do in robes that one couldn’t do just as well and far easier in a nice jumper and trousers or a good skirt. She liked the house colour idea, though, and got Hermione’s help to turn all her coloured jumpers into nice shades of blue, though she left the grey and brown ones as they were. After all, it wouldn’t do to dirty up something blue when she could dirty up the brown and not have it visibly stain.

She brought Hermione with her to the garden whenever she could. Hermione wasn’t all that interested in kneeling in the dirt and weeding, but she was a good sport, and could usually be convinced to bring along a book and sit on the bench or on a blanket while Lila worked on restoring the garden to something she could use. She had iris bulbs from Professor Sprout, ones that were supposedly meant to be planted on the first frost, rather than a month before it like normal, and she wanted everything to be ready so she could properly set them up for spring.

“Lila, what are you doing?” Hermione whispered. “Professor Snape told us to make the Wiggenweld Potion, and you’ve hardly looked at your book once. How are you going to know the instructions?”

“It’s a healing stimulant,” she explained with a shrug. “The concept is pretty straightforward.”

“It’s the most complicated potion we study this year,” the other witch groaned. “You’re going to get yourself killed one of these days.”

“I’d be more likely to get myself killed in Defence,” she assured her friend. “I haven’t managed any of the spells yet, and Quirrell said we’re going to start sparring with each other soon. I can’t block or shield, and I can’t cast any back. Whoever I get paired with is going to obliterate me.” That was a word she’d learned from Tom, who liked to say he would do just that every time he claimed there were students being rude to Lila. She hadn’t noticed any yet, but she believed him when he said they were there.

“Pair with Neville Longbottom,” Hermione suggested. “Most of his spells haven’t got enough power to do much damage.” A few moments passed, and then Hermione’s cheeks turned a brilliant red. “That was a bit rude, wasn’t it?” she asked Lila, resigned.

“Er, only a bit,” she tried. “It’s true, though. It wouldn’t be right to pair with you since you’d have to dumb yourself down so you don’t kill me, but what if I got someone who wanted to?”

“Oh, Merlin, what if you got Malfoy?” Hermione said, giggling for some reason.

“What would be wrong with that?”

Hermione just stared at her. “He’s got that whole… thing about you,” she tried to explain, gesturing vaguely. “Everywhere you go, he follows just to glare at you. He tries to start a fight every other day. Hell, he’s been insulting me just in an effort to get to you.” Lila just stared at her blankly, not recognizing any of those instances. Hermione gave a long-suffering sigh and waved her wand over Lila’s potion. “Oh, why do I even try with you…”

“Miss Potter,” Snape snapped. “May I ask why you have elected to use Miss Granger’s assistance on an individual potion?”

“I haven’t managed the charm yet,” she told him apologetically. It must have been a bit of a nuisance for him, she supposed, but it was a nuisance for her as well, so she couldn’t feel that bad. “I’m still doing all the brewing myself, though, promise.”

“And have you practised the charm?” he asked sarcastically. 

She nodded enthusiastically. It was one of the few charms she actually had practised, as she really did want to be able to brew potions alone and not have to run back to Hermione with her tail between her legs every class period. “I haven’t managed any charms yet, Professor,” she told him. “You can ask Professor Flitwick. Oh dear, I’ve almost missed putting in the rosemary!” she exclaimed as she noticed her timer about to hit the nine minute mark. That would have ruined the whole thing.

“There is no rosemary in this potion, Miss Potter.”

“Well, no, but there’s pomegranate leaves and Popperpeppers, and it seems silly to use both of those when you can just use rosemary instead. It’ll have the same effect, after all. It’s not quite as strong, though, which is why I added it at the nine minute marker instead of eleven and a half.”

“I see,” he replied, sounding pained. “And what else have you elected to do to your potion?”

Professor Snape was not pleased with Lila’s decision to ignore the textbook, but there was little he could do when she held out a perfectly functional Wiggenweld-ish potion and painstakingly explained each choice she’d made for the ingredients and times and such. Well, he gave her detention and marked her down to an EE on what really should have been an O, but that wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been. 

“What am I to do for exams, Professor?” she asked of Professor McGonagall after class. They’d been turning mice into teacups, and her mouse had done nothing but squeak and then run off. “I still haven’t managed a transfiguration, and you know it’s not for inaccuracy or lack of trying.” It was the latter, actually. She practised the wand motions and incantations, knew the theory and background passably well, but she wasn’t very well going to try and use her magic and wand for something neither wanted to do. 

“Have you managed any magic at all, Miss Potter?” McGonagall asked warily. 

“I can use my magic in Herbology!” she assured the older witch. “I have got magic, promise, it just doesn’t seem to want to be used very much. “Here, look. Professor Sprout gave this to me this morning, and I haven’t gotten back to my dormitory yet,” she explained, as she pulled a tiny pot out of the side pocket of her bag, much to the professor’s confusion. “It’s a little cactus that was growing in one of the mandrakes’ pots, and she had no use for it.” It was a tiny ball of spines, which Lila thought was adorable, and Tom thought was a generally inadvisable house plant. “Watch this.” She held the pot in one hand and trailed the tip of her wand up the cactus with the other, and as she did it grew, so that by the time her wand reached the top, it was nearly a foot tall, with several offshoots and three brilliant purple blooms. 

“Godric’s good grace…” the professor breathed. “You’ve got quite a talent, Miss Potter. And no charm even, at that! Oh, five points to Ravenclaw. Is it an issue of the spells? Could you transfigure silently, or without an incantation?”

Lila shook her head. “I’ve tried that. It’s not an issue of the spell or the type of spell or anything. My magic only seems to work when it comes to plants. And I’m alright with that,” she added, remembering Hermione’s well-intentioned pity. “But I think it’s going to make exams sort of hard. You don’t really need spells in Potions, especially since I know enough about the ingredients that I can usually just change some around a little, and I’ll do fine in Herbology, of course. I probably won’t do very well in History, but that’s not a magic issue.” 

As if I’d let you fail, Tom snarked, and if he had eyes of his own to roll, she was sure they’d be boring into the back of their skull. I can tell you the History answers.

“But the ones for this class, Charms, Defence, and Astronomy, I’m less sure about. I haven’t managed any of the spells yet, except the one charm that we learned in Herbology that lets you water plants to their liking and the elemental growth spell thing. Even that charm, I’m not all that good at. And I’d know if I was doing them wrong. I’m best friends with Hermione.”

“I will speak with the other professors and see what we can work out,” McGonagall told her. “Stay after on Thursday as well, and I’ll update you on our decision.”

Hermione snapped shut the massive book she’d been calling light reading. “Right,” she said, turning to properly face Lila. “So. The Philosopher’s Stone is currently in Hogwarts, and Snape is trying to steal it.”

Lila blinked. Considered. Came up with nothing.

Tom?

The Philosopher’s Stone is the creation of Nicolas Flamel, a French alchemist from the 1400’s, he supplied helpfully. I always thought it was a myth, or at least partially legend. From it comes the Elixir of Life, which can keep you alive for eternity, should you wish it. It also turns metal to gold.

And why would it be in Hogwarts?

They sighed the answer at the same time. Dumbledore.

And what about Snape?

He was a follower of mine, Tom mused. A spy. Not nearly foolish enough to steal a priceless artefact from under Dumbledore’s nose.

“Snape wouldn’t do that,” Lila reported to Hermione. “He’s not stupid enough.”

“No arguments for the rest of it?”

Lila shrugged. “I believe you.”

It hurts, she whimpered. It hurts so horribly, Tom. I can hardly move, what if I can’t stand ever again?

You’re not harmed, he reminded her, and she frowned. Wasn’t she? She could have sworn that she’d hit the ground too hard, but it was always possible she was just exhausted or scared. This is not pain, Lila, this is how you imagine the pain should be. Imagine it to be less, and it will be.

She nodded slowly and pushed herself up bit by bit, much to Quirrell-Tom’s amusement. Not pain, she reminded herself. The only reason she’d been stuck on the ground was because she thought she had to be, and she didn’t. Tom said she didn’t, and Tom didn’t lie to her. She groaned, heaving herself onto one foot and then the other, swaying weakly. No, not weakly. Because she hadn’t chosen to be weak, and so she stilled herself a bit more.

“I want you dead,” she rasped, stone in one hand and her wand in the other. “You failed . You fucked up. You took everything from me, and you left me alive. And I’ve come for what you owe me.”

“How delightfully Machiavellian,” the high voice attached to the back of Quirrell’s head cackled.

“I learned from the best,” she spat, and lunged at him. The only moment he’d touched her, he’d flinched away as though burned. She hadn’t missed it. Her wand dropped to the floor, and she wrapped her hands around his heads, one palm covering around each face, fingers digging into fleshy bits of cheek and eyelid, and she held on for dear life. He struggled for about ten horrifying seconds where she began to doubt everything she’d ever believed or seen in her entire life because what if he wasn’t being hurt at all? What if she’d just dropped her wand to execute a perfectly useless attack?

But then his face began to crumble into dust, followed by his body, until all that was left was a pile of robes and an alder wand.

Lila passed out as a screaming wraith flew directly through her chest.

When she awoke, the chamber was as empty and silent as she’d left it. She shifting, moaning as she did. A jagged end of bone had stuck itself directly through the skin of her ankle, and she froze. Tom? she asked. I don’t understand. I thought I wasn’t hurt…

You’d broken your ankle, he replied dismissively, but that didn’t mean you had to lie on the floor weeping about it. 

You lied to me.

I helped you. Did you forget what I promised, all those years ago?

She supposed that was true. Even if he’d lied the once, Tom never broke his promises. Can you fix my ankle?

Of course, he agreed smoothly. Let me take over a moment? Perfect. Brackium Emendo, he cast, waving the wand Quirrell had dropped and casting the spell with ease. The bones shifted back into place and began to mould together, a process Lila had no interest in paying attention to. 

How long has it been?

A few hours. Fortunately, Quirrell stunned your pet Mudblood when he went through the Potions room a few minutes after you did. I will be able to bring her back to consciousness on our way back to the Tower. And Lila, he cautioned, I do not recommend telling her all that has happened tonight. 

She doesn’t scare easily, Lila reasoned. We killed the troll together, you know. And I was her first friend, so I think she’s sort of been gung-ho from the start.

I only suggest perhaps softening the details, he consoled her. And tell her the stone was destroyed. That is my only requirement.

Alright, I guess.

She kept Quirrell’s wand upon Tom’s request, letting him vanish Quirrell’s robes, and she pocketed the stone. She chanced another glance in the mirror. She stood, a few years older than she was now, in a massive walled garden of white and blue flowers. Mirror-Lila leaned forward to tell her a secret, and offered a brief grin. She tapped her index finger to her temple knowingly. She still had Tom with her. 

What do you see in here, Tom? she asked.

Us, dear Lila, he said after a moment of consideration. I see us.

For Astronomy, they had to choose a star that they hadn’t studied yet that year, locate it in the sky, use the Star Bright charm to bottle a bit of its light, and write an essay about the star. They then had to present their findings to the class so that by the end of the presentations, the class had received crash courses on a variety of new stars. Lila chose and located their star, as she had a strange sort of instinct when it came to finding them in the night sky, and Hermione cast the charm to bottle it. Hermione did most of the essay, though Lila helped as much as she could. She really would have done more, but it was hard to draw Hermione’s attention away from an essay when she was invested, so Lila was mostly there for the research. They split the presentation equally. Professor Sinistra was quite pleased.

For Charms, Flitwick had offered the alternative of casting two spells of the student’s choice rather than one of his own, so she cast the watering charm and a spell they’d learned only a week before the exam which could cure a plant of fungal infection. Flitwick fell directly off of his chair when she cast it with so much power that it cured all of the other plants in the room as well, which were meant for any other student who wished to demonstrate that same spell.

Hermione had helped her review the wandwork for all of the Transfiguration spells, so that went exactly as well as she’d expected. McGonagall had offered something similar to Flitwick, where a student could demonstrate the incantation and wandwork for every single spell learned that year rather than casting one of her choosing.

Defence exams were usually quite heavy on the practical side, but given that Quirrell had suddenly disappeared three days before the exam, they were informed that their grade in the class would simply stay as it was, something with which Hermione was horribly disappointed, but Lila was entirely satisfied.

She ended the year with an O in Herbology and History, an EE in Astronomy, Potions, Transfiguration, and Charms, and an A in Defence.

Hermione, of course, received straight O’s, aside from an EE in History which she was extremely frustrated with, mostly because Lila had managed an O, and they shared their notes for the class. Lila felt a little guilty since she hadn’t exactly come about her answers honestly, but she had already ordered Hermone a celebratory gift for what she knew would be an amazing success, so she figured that made up for it. She’d gotten her friend a book on a Muggleborn witch who used espionage and the legal system alike to put an end to the witch trials in Britain. Hermione burst into tears as soon as Lila passed her the book with a ribbon tied around it– no paper, as Hermione didn’t need there to be any barriers between her and a new book– and wrapped her in the tightest hug she’d ever had, and just like that, the year was done.

It had been the very best year of Lila's life.