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Hermione huffed as another of her letters was dropped through her window. Return to sender. Lila wouldn’t ignore her letters like that, and even if she did, Hermione deserved an explanation! So she looked up Vernon and Petunia Dursley, Surrey, in a phone book, found a number, and asked her mum for a favour.

“You’ve reached the Dursley residence, this is Petunia,” answered a simpering voice.

“Good morning, Mrs. Dursley,” Hermione’s mum greeted with a smile. “This is Emmaline Granger. My daughter Hermione goes to school with your niece, and I was calling to see if we could arrange a good date this summer for Lila to come stay over at our home. I know Hermione misses her terribly.”

“You’re some of those people, too?” the woman on the other line asked warily. “Delilah won’t be associating with your sort over the summer.”

“My sort? You mean dentists?” Mum asked pleasantly, and Hermione squeezed her hand in thanks that she’d heeded Hermione’s warnings about Lila’s guardians and their views on magic. “My husband and I are quite boring, I assure you, Mrs. Dursley. Our daughter is the only gifted one in the family. We own and operate Granger Dental and Orthodontics, if you know where that is.”

“Dentists?” she repeated, sounding rather reluctantly interested. “Say, we’re holding a bit of a party at our home this Saturday. My niece and I keep up an award-winning garden, and I always feel it would be a shame to keep it to ourselves. How about you and your family come for the party, and then take Lila home with you for that night. You can return her sometime on Sunday, or Monday if you prefer.”

“That sounds lovely, Mrs. Dursley,” Mum agreed.

“Petunia, please.”

“Emmaline, then. Here, let me get a pen so I can write down your address.” Hermione passed hers over immediately. She was reading and taking notes on the book Lila had given her, and there was so much she wanted to write down! “Thank you again for the invitation,” Mum was saying warmly. “We’ll see you this weekend.” She hung up the phone and ruffled Hermione’s hair. “Well, we’ve got that worked out. Jeez, though, all that about ‘those people’ and ‘your sort’? I worry about that friend of yours, hun.”

“I worry about her, too, Mum,” Hermione admitted sadly. “She says they’re not too awful, though, and she doesn’t like to talk about them much, so I don’t think there’s much I can do about it.”

“I think you’re doing more than enough just by being there for her,” Mum said, pressing a kiss to her head. “You just keep doing that, and you’re already making us proud.”

Mrs. Petunia Dursley of Number Four Privet Drive took care to remind the Grangers no less than three separate times not to mention anything related to Hogwarts or “The M-Word” in their home, which the Grangers thought was a bit excessive, but fortunately not the end of the world. Hermione had gotten all dressed up for the party in a new baby blue dress and mary jane shoes, and she was nearly jumping right out of them with excitement to see her friend again. 

All the girls at school growing up had thought she was weird, too smart and too awkward and too inclined to correct people when they were wrong. Swot, teacher’s pet, know-it-all, weirdo, bossy. Every year she would try to make friends, and every year she blew it when her classmates inevitably realised she wasn’t very good at it. By nine or so, she’d stopped trying. When she left for Hogwarts, she hoped it might be different, a fresh start, but didn’t get her hopes up. She had magic . That was special enough, even if she wouldn’t have friends for it.

She’d met Lila on the train, when she was helping Neville Longbottom look for his toad, and she’d seen her glasses held together with tape, and she’d read about the charm to fix them, so after Neville asked after his pet and the girl had shaken her head, Hermione cast the charm and fixed them. She hadn’t expected Lila to think much of it.

She’d only met a few other people on the train. There was a loud redheaded boy who had cast a ridiculous imitation of a charm to turn his rat yellow, and had gotten mad when she questioned the legitimacy of the spell. He’d told her to prove that she could do magic, and she’d cast a Lumos charm, hoping she’d passed his test, but instead he just called her a know-it-all, and she’d left. He’d talked about Gryffindor, and she decided that if that was the sort of behaviour that got you into Gryffindor, then she needed to look somewhere else. She was at magical school to learn magic above all, so she certainly couldn’t go to the house that thought knowing more magic was a bad thing!

The hat told her she was smart enough for Ravenclaw and brave enough for Gryffindor, and she thought about how happy the girl on the train had gotten when her glasses were fixed with magic, and how upset the boy had been when she showed him a spell, and picked Ravenclaw. Learning magic, knowing magic, should be good , Hermione had decided firmly. 

And the girl on the train turned out to be none other than the saviour of the magical world, and she remembered Hermione! Lila had told her about flowers and listened when Hermione told her about the history of Hogwarts, and she looked actually interested. And so maybe the other girl was infuriatingly nonchalant when it came to her lack of progression in magic, but she was brilliant in so many other ways, and always smiled when Hermione corrected her pronunciation or incantations and congratulated Hermione when she managed a new spell. Lila asked her for help on her essays before Hermione could even offer her assistance, and could spend the entirety of supper rambling about some new plant she’d read of or talking about her garden. Hermione didn’t understand the appeal of gardening, but it was lovely to study outside, and Lila always asked her to come along. Even if she hated studying outside, she still would have done it.

The point was, Lila was her very first friend ever, and the best friend she could possibly have hoped for. She’d never had a proper friend before, never had someone who really wanted to spend time with her and didn’t even seem to want to find better friends and leave Hermione behind. If the price she had to pay was pretending to go to Lady Catharine’s Academy for Young Ladies for an afternoon, she’d pay it in a heartbeat. 

Lila ended up going to the Grangers’ home most weekends, as the Dursleys made a habit of throwing block parties on Saturdays, and the Grangers had a standing invitation– and had been instructed to bring friends, which they often did– so they’d take Lila back with them for the weekend and drop her back home on Monday evenings after work.

Aunt Petunia would always go on about how good it was that Lila had managed to locate some “good, respectable” people even amongst all of the freaks at her school, and this sort of tangent would always make Tom quite upset, but Lila was just pleased that her and Hermione’s families were getting on. Aunt Petunia had even let Lila spend a few nights in the guest room so that Hermione would be able to stay over. She’d had little interest in making it a regular occurrence, but Lila had never gotten to have a friend over before, so even just the once was good enough for her.

Hermione was good about never mentioning magic in front of Lila’s relatives, which Lila was very grateful for, but she was also wonderful at telling them about interesting non-magical books she’d read and spoke very highly of the garden Lila had started at school– though she also remembered never to actually name the school itself– and the Dursleys were absolutely charmed. Hermione had told her once that she was fantastic with adults, even if kids usually didn’t like her, and while Lila hadn’t doubted her at the time, there was certainly no doubt now that she’d seen it for herself. She’d even been on her way out when some of Uncle Vernon’s colleagues had come over for dinner, and had introduced herself with all the bookish boldness Lila was used to in her, and Lila had overheard them telling Uncle Vernon what lovely company they kept. Uncle Vernon had been so pleased that the guest room became Lila’s permanent bedroom, as long as they didn’t have other visitors, and so really, Lila was entirely satisfied.

Lila was setting out refreshments when a crack shuddered and startled through the living room. “What on Earth are you?” she hissed in shock, nearly dropping the plate of perfectly triangular cucumber finger sandwiches. “And what are you doing here! No one invited you .”

It stared up at her with the widest eyes she’d ever seen, massive pointy ears and an equally large nose the only other things that stood out on its tiny little form. It seemed to be wearing some sort of pillow case or maybe just a filthy toga. Regardless, it was dirty and ugly, and definitely going to get some sort of filth on her freshly cleaned carpets.

“I is Dobby, Missy Lila Potter,” it squeaked. 

A house elf, Tom filled in helpfully, his disgust filling her mind, and she winced.

“And what are you doing in my house?”

It seemed to puff out its tiny chest. “I is here to warn Missy Lila Potter!” it cried. “Missy Lila Potter must not return to Hogwarts!”

“Er,” she said, setting down the plate and sitting on the couch so she was a little closer to its height. It felt really very strange to be talking to something barely two feet tall. “Why exactly would I not go back to Hogwarts? I’ve got to go to school– I’m pretty sure that’s a law.”

“There are bad things going on at Hogwarts,” it said, shaking its head frantically. “Very, very bad, dangerous things.”

“Seems about right,” Lila muttered, thinking of trolls and dark wizards and very fancy rocks that were still in her jewellery box. “My friend will be at Hogwarts come September,” she tried to explain to the little elf. “I’m not very well going to stay behind without my friend.”

“A friend who does not even write Missy Lila Potter?” it said slyly, and Lila began to defend Hermione, or maybe just defend the merits of the telephone as an invention, but then she paused.

“Dobby, have you been intercepting my mail?” 

It grew teary eyed. “I has only been thinking that maybe if Missy Lila Potter didn’t think there was anything at Hogwarts for her, then she might not go back.”

“Delilah!” Aunt Petunia called from the next room over. “Have you got everything ready for the guests?”

“Just finishing up now!” Lila called back. “You’ve got to leave,” she informed the elf. “You can’t be here during the party.”

It crossed its arms stubbornly. “I is not leaving until I has Missy Lila Potter’s promise that she won’t be going back to Hogwarts.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. If it’s really that serious, then I don’t want to be there for it anyway. I won’t go back to Hogwarts this year. Now get out of my house.”

Another crack, and it was gone.

That had been a lie, of course. Tom would be proud.

Lila’s birthday came at the end of July, and Hermione had bought her a book about famous Herbologists and a little potted orchid, and soon enough, they were on the Hogwarts Express again, claiming a compartment together and ignoring everyone else.

Second year quickly seemed to be on track to be just as lovely– or maybe even more so!– than first year had been. Homework had picked up a bit, but Hermione’s increased anxiety about that had been balanced out by having much less anxiety about Malfoy, who had redirected his ire towards the redheaded Gryffindor boy who’d insulted Hermione in first year. Their feud– apparently stemming from a fist fight their fathers had gotten into over the summer– took care of two problems simultaneously for the girls.

The new Defence professor, as Quirrell was obviously unable to resume his post, was so pompous and so blond that he put Malfoy’s pompousness and blondness to shame. Hermione blushed a lot when he addressed her, but she also complained frequently of his stupidity, so Lila wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that.

She has a crush, Tom had groaned when she asked. She’d been worried that Lockhart was hexing Hermione or that maybe the other witch was sick, and so she’d taken her concerns to the cleverest wizard she knew. Merlin, if I’d realised I’d have to deal with twelve year old girls and their love lives, I would have chosen death.

That’s a lie, she’d snorted. You would never choose death. But what do you mean she has a crush? She hates him!

She hates him because she has a crush on him, Tom informed her curtly, sounding very much like he would like to eradicate the world of all twelve year olds currently inhabiting it. And now we are ending this conversation and never repeating it again. Do your homework.

In October, the oleander had begun to fade and the candytuft had come back for its second bloom, and she filled in the gaps with potted chrysanthemums and buried a few more bulbs. She got to pick a few of the pumpkins she’d been growing in one corner so that she and Hermione could carve and light them and put them in the common room, and a few of the other students had asked her to bring them pumpkins as well. Two fourth year girls– Evelyn, a highly reserved witch who would have done fantastically at Lady Catharine’s with her prim posture and perfect grammar, and Orla, with short light brown curls and a smattering of freckles across her perpetually smiling face– had never carved pumpkins before. Lila demonstrated the process, and Hermione badgered them with questions about Charms, which Evelyn did her best to answer. Lila was usually entirely content letting Hermione lead the academic conversations, but asked Orla a question about a part of their Astronomy assignment that she hadn’t quite understood, and had discovered it was the other girl’s favourite subject! 

The fourteen year olds weren’t particularly interested in having second years attached to them, but Orla had explained that most of their friends were in Hufflepuff or Slytherin, so they were usually up to study at the same table in the common room or sit together at meals. Orla was also much more willing than Hermione to sneak up to the Astronomy tower after curfew to watch the stars, which was fantastic for Lila and an endless source of relief for Hermione. Lila really would have been fine just having Hermione, like she had the year before, but Hermione seemed to be practically glowing with her new found sociability, so Lila went along with it. After all, Hermione didn’t have a Tom, she had to remind herself. Lila never had to be lonely.

“I was wondering if you might tell us anything about the Chamber of Secrets,” Hermione asked confidently in Transfiguration in early November. Filch’s cat had been petrified, as well as the ghost of Gryffindor House, which wasn’t the end of the world in it of itself, but Lila wasn’t particularly fond of the idea that there was something in the school that could petrify things. 

“The Chamber of Secrets…” McGonagall had repeated, sounding extremely sad all of a sudden. “Most think it a myth. Some believe there is a chamber beneath the school, hidden by Salazar Slytherin himself for his descendents to find. In it, they say, is a monster.” The whole class gasped at this information. Tom was strangely quiet. “Perhaps it is not so important whether or not such a chamber exists,” the Scottish witch said next, adjusting her spectacles and pursing her lips in that crooked dogwood smile. “Perhaps it is more important that there are people who would perform cruel acts in the name of a long dead wizard and a handful of records and stories about his beliefs. Perhaps the monster is nothing more than a witch or wizard far too devoted to fear.”

“Come… come to me… Let me rip you… Let me tear you… Let me kill you…”

Then little first year Colin Creevy was petrified, and the girls’ bathroom on the second floor flooded for two weeks. Anyone who passed the flooded area could just hear haunting sobs coming from within. The students were escorted from class to class, and teachers lined the way from the Great Hall to the library so that the trip could be made safely. Professor Sprout took Lila and Hermione to the garden twice a week, and had become prone to holding both girls quite close and not letting go for several moments.

“Rip… tear… kill…” Lila wondered if she was going mad.

“Why does he hate me?” Lila groaned, after Malfoy had tried picking on her again and finally taken the hint that she was truly uninterested in engaging with him, despite what she was sure were noble efforts to rile her. “I’ve never even talked to him for more than a minute.”

“Well,” Orla began, stifling a snicker.

“You did kill his dad’s boss,” Evelyn finished evenly before returning her attention to her essay, and Orla nodded.

I killed his boss? she asked Tom. I don’t remember killing anyone, except whatever happened to Quirrell I suppose…

You killed Voldemort, in a sense, Tom reminded her.

Her eyes blew wide. “Voldemort was his boss?” she exclaimed, to Tom as much as her friends. She was taken aback. “I hope they had good benefits. Uncle Vernon is always talking about how employers these days have no respect for health and leisure.”

“Good– good benefits?” Hermione repeated warily. “Lila, the Death Eaters were the most successful terrorist organization Britain has seen in hundreds of years. I don’t think they were particularly focused on offering dental. Though,” she said consideringly, “a main point of You-Know-Who’s mission was keeping the money and power in the hands of the Pureblooded Dark wizards, so I suppose they did benefit from that in a sense.”

“And Malfoy’s dad was one of those?”

Orla flushed. “That really wasn’t a very nice thing for us to say,” she said, sounding legitimately regretful, and Merlin if that wasn’t one of the reasons she liked the girl so much. She was very rarely unkind, but when she slipped up, she was always immediately aware of it and tried to remedy it as much as she could. Evelyn was proper enough that she was rarely rude, but spoke her mind plainly without softening her words, and usually had her mind on her studies rather than other people. Hermione tried her best, not that Lila minded either way, but the other girl was sharp in a way that easily turned callous, and Lila simply didn’t have a strong enough interest in how everybody else felt to improve very much on that front. Tom certainly wasn’t any help. “Evelyn’s mum has a seat on the Wizengamot with the DMLE. He wasn’t convicted, but come on, Lila, you’ve seen how Malfoy talks.”

Was Malfoy a Death Eater? she had to ask Tom.

Yes .

Is that why you kept trying to get me to get to know Draco? Because his dad worked for you?

Yes to that as well, though it was a lost cause. He truly despises you beyond repair. Tom just sounded amused by the whole thing. The other Slytherins are beginning to find it annoying, if it makes you feel better.

How’s all that going with befriending them? I never asked.

Networking, he corrected. And quite well, thank you. You’ve got an ally in the Parkinson girl if you need one. Her family’s been dark all the way back, but too strong of an institution to swear itself to anyone outside of it. The Greengrass girl as well, she likes us much more than Parkinson. Neutral but traditional family, always looking for the next move up. Next year, we’ll branch out to the older Slytherins as well.

Next year was going to be a long year, it seemed. Tom often took over for her a night or two a week, heading out to see the Slytherins after supper but before curfew. By that point at night she was usually pretty tired, especially since she and Hermione both got up pretty early, so she was glad to get to sit in the backseat of her mind and spin stories. Tom still thought it was a foolish passtime, but she didn’t see how that was her problem.

They were repotting mandrakes in Herbology, charting the movement of the planets in Astronomy, and studying the eighteen millionth Goblin War in History of Magic. The garden was looking better than ever, and Lila had finally managed the two charms they’d needed so far while making potions! Professor Snape was not nearly as impressed or excited about this news as Lila was, but she didn’t let it discourage her.

Lockhart hadn’t moved them on to anything exciting, preferring to wax poetic about his own accomplishments than teach them new material. He’d begun having them act out his exploits in front of the class, and had tried to involve Lila in the exercise before he realised she wasn’t paying the least bit of attention, and was instead reading her book under her desk quite blatantly. The perfect glinting smile had hardened into something awkward, and Tom had been itching to hex his teeth to rot. 

Lila believed it was a serious testament to her self restraint that she stopped him.

“We’re going to be learning the shrinking charm today, class!” Professor Flitwick announced. “You may practise this charm on any object of your liking, and if you need to borrow something, you may take an object from the table in the front of the room.” On one corner of the table was a succulent in a little pot, and Lila took that one under Flitwick’s watchful eye, taking a paperweight for Hermione as well. “Repeat after me. Reducio!”

Lila repeated after him, Hermione correcting her under her breath. It’s re-DU-cio, the other witch had murmured. You’re putting too much emphasis on the first syllable.

The wand motion was a little circle followed by a straight line down, something that Tom had told her was the same as the lowercase letter phi, but that meant absolutely nothing to Lila. She reported the information to Hermione, however, who understood immediately and righted her own wandwork before helping Lila with hers.

“Three, two, one. Reducio!” both girls exclaimed in unison. Hermione always liked counting down to a spell the first couple of times they tried it, so that they could do it together. Lila wasn’t entirely certain what that did to help, but it always added to the thrill of trying new spells, which was enough for her.

Simultaneous casting can also increase power, Tom said consideringly. It’s not written about for charms, since the practice is usually reserved for warding, and people are often suspicious that you’re using the olde magicks when you do it. Perhaps your Mudblood is more clever than I thought.

I told you she was clever, Lila snarked, pride for her friend swelling in her chest.  

Lila’s succulent had shrunk to the size of a galleon, and Hermione’s paperweight may as well have been a marble. Professor Flitwick nearly fell over with excitement as he held up the miniature items to show the rest of the class.

“Knight to c6,” Orla said gleefully, capturing the second of Lila’s bishops. She’d already taken both knights, one of her rooks, and every pawn, and Lila had hardly gotten a shot in. Evelyn and Orla shared a room, and so it was much larger than Lila’s or Hermione’s, which made it the perfect place to be after the House curfew had hit and the common room was clearing out. Hermione and Evelyn were studying at the desk, and since Evelyn’s birthday present from her mum had been a magical chess set, the other two had decided to amuse themselves until dinner rather than attempt to drag their friends away from their books.

“Rook to c5,” Lila replied, rolling her eyes. 

“Bishop to c5!”

Lila enjoyed magical chess a lot more than regular chess, mainly because she could play without moving. She wasn’t a particular fan of any chess at all, as there were just too many pieces to juggle with the game. When she was younger, and Tom was teaching her how to play, she had a tendency to get overly attached to a particular piece that she was playing through, and while she protected her chosen knight or rook or pawn, he’d be busy checking her king. He had some insane ability to keep track of every single piece on the board, sacrificing his as needed and stripping her of her own ruthlessly; she’d learned to compensate.

She considered the board before her mouth twitched into a smile. “King to f8. Checkmate.”

“Checkmate?” Orla exclaimed. “That’s not possible. I’ve taken all your pieces!”

Lila shrugged. “You didn’t take my king or my queen,” she explained, and it was Tom’s words which fell from her lips without her permission. “Everything else is just distractions.”

Duelling Club was founded right before Valentine’s Day. Lockhart stood on the raised duelling platform in dark blue robes with a moon and stars embroidered over them in silver– and Lila wanted a set, she decided– flashing what he must have thought was a charming smile to the crowd. Based on some of the looks he was getting from the girls, and a few boys, too, it must have been working. Hermione seemed to have gotten over her crush, but Tom was having a blast pointing out and mocking the swooners, Orla among them.

“Miss Granger and Miss Patil!” Flitwick called, beckoning the two witches to the platform. “Would you two mind demonstrating proper duelling form?”

Hermione looked extremely pleased to be chosen, and their fashionable housemate always seemed to be in good spirits, so they seemed like a good choice for an example pair. They met in the middle of the duelling platform, then turned on their heels and walked seven paces each before both girls bowed politely. Hermione shot a disarming spell which Padma countered with a shield, then Padma cast a jelly-legs, and Hermione had already cast the counter before the spell reached her. They exchanged a few more flashes of light before Hermione caught Padma unaware with a full body bind. She snapped up and froze, and the bushy-haired witch was declared the winner. 

“Now for another pair!” Lockhart announced. “Perhaps Potter and Weasley!” Lila was ready to voice her own complaints, seeing as she hadn’t managed any defence spells and would just be endangering herself if she participated, but Snape had already interrupted before she could.

“Encouraging Weasley to cast more spells than the required minimum would amount to asking him to return our… saviour … to us in a matchbox,” Professor Snape said in that quiet, cutting sneer he always seemed to have. Weasley’s face had turned as red as his hair. “Perhaps someone from my own House… Malfoy?”

It had all gone downhill from there.

“Serpensortia!” Draco had spat while she was still in the process of bowing and wondering what on Earth she was supposed to do when she could neither cast nor block the spells they’d studied.

A large white snake flew from the end of his wand– and she wondered what sort of wood his was made of, maybe maple like hers? Or elm?– before she was jolted out of her thoughts by a deafening hiss a few feet above her head.

“Please sit down,” she whispered, frozen in fear. And the snake… obeyed? Well, it sort of did, at least. It lowered its head considerably, but that meant it was even closer to her, and she gulped. “ Curl up peacefully, ” she tried, holding her hands out in a universal calming motion. “ Don’t hurt anyone, that’s it, now. I’m not going to hurt you, there are no threats here .”

The snake had coiled at her feet, creating a heap of snake that she wasn’t entirely certain what to do with. “ Yesss, speaker,” she heard softly. “ Perhapsss… sssleep…”

“You can talk?” Lila exclaimed. “I mean, you can’t just understand me, but you can respond?”

“Oh, yesss…” the snake– and wasn’t that a crazy thought– replied. “Did you think sssnakes didn’t have our own language? But I didn’t know humansss could speak it…”

Lila cleared her throat, and cast the first spell she could think of. “Reducio!” she recited, and the mountain of snake turned into a molehill. She knelt down, holding out her hand hesitantly. The little snake hissed and slithered up her hand, twining around her wrist contentedly. 

Lila looked up to a room of open-mouthed faces.

When we told Headmaster Dumbledore I could speak to snakes, I didn’t think you meant like this, Lila complained to Tom. Why didn’t you tell me I was a Parselmouth?!

I didn’t know you were, he said, unaffected by her frustration, but sounding rather frustrated himself upon the realisation that something had been happening that he hadn’t known about. I, of course, am a Parselmouth, but it’s not as though I knew you would have received the blessing of the skill simply by my being here.

Well, everyone thinks it’s freaky, she huffed. Hermione had not thought it was freaky; rather, she’d hugged Lila tight and then dragged her along to the library so she could do research. But Orla and Evelyn had both stopped sitting with them at meals or to study, casting wary glances Lila’s way when they passed each other or sat too close in the common room. It hurt in a way she wasn’t sure how to describe. She’d never lost a friend before. She’d never had any, just Tom, and he wasn’t exactly going anywhere.

Everywhere Lila went, she was followed by whispers. Heir of Slytherin, they said. Evil, they said. Nevermind that her best friend was a Muggleborn. Nevermind that all of her surviving family was made up of Muggles.

It was probably because she’d refused to relinquish the snake, she reasoned. Since it had been properly shrunk, it wasn’t very well a threat, and Professor Snape and Professor Sprout had both confirmed that it was a constrictor snake, not a venomous one. In its miniature form, the most it was capable of was cracking a walnut and giving Lila’s hand a bit of a cramp. Professor Flitwick hadn’t minded Lila keeping the little snake so long as she understood that she was responsible for any damage it caused– which was the same rule for all students who brought pets– but it was Professor McGonagall who was her strongest advocate. 

“Miss Potter is not the only student with a pet outside of the list,” she’d proclaimed to the apologetic but firm Headmaster. “The Weasley boys have a rat, Lee Jordan has a tarantula, Rose Zeller has a hamster, and Piper Peakes has got a hedgehog, of all things!” Lila very badly wanted to see the hedgehog. “Albus, if you require Miss Potter to give up her snake, I hope you intend on making every other student with an unspecified pet send it home at once!”

Headmaster Dumbledore had not been pleased behind his baby’s breath beard and half-moon spectacles, and he levelled her with the same ill and concerned sort of look that he’d adopted when he’d first met her, a little girl in a cupboard reciting Tom’s lines. But in the end, she’d kept her snake, which she’d named Apple, much to Tom’s dismay. 

One of the sixth year prefects, Penelope Clearwater, had been petrified before March could begin, along with her boyfriend, the Weasley boy in her year. A half-blood and a pureblood, came the whispers. What could possibly have convinced the Heir of Slytherin to target them? What could possibly have convinced Lila Potter?

Professor McGonagall announced with regret that Hogwarts was likely to close down if the petrifications continued. It seemed unfortunate, though Lila was more opposed to returning to Lady Catharine’s than anything else, but it had sent Hermione into a frenzy.

She had been researching non-stop, stuffing more books than food into the picnic basket when they went to the garden, and spending every other minute in the library. A week later, they discovered that all the roosters had been slaughtered. While Lila had gagged at the sight of chicken corpses strewn about the hallways, Hermione had only grown calculating, and Lila had assumed the role of her sherpa so that they could bring nearly twenty books back to the common room for them– well, for Hermione– to study. Lila couldn’t really be bothered.

Then Hermione was petrified, found with one of Padma Patil’s compact mirrors and four books on magical creatures and her hand clenched in an angry fist, and Lila’s blood-curdling screams from the hospital wing could be heard on the quidditch pitch.

Suffice to say, Lila could definitely be bothered now.

“Lila,” Orla called, more concern on her features than Lila had seen before. “Come over for a moment, will you?”

“What,” she said with a scowl. The other girls had been avoiding her for weeks now– what they could possibly want was beyond her. 

You could curse them, Tom suggested helpfully. It’ll make you feel better, darling, promise.

Please don’t tempt me right now, she begged. I’m this close to agreeing, and I can’t even cast any curses! I’d just embarrass myself.

I would never let you embarrass yourself.

You absolutely would. You have, in fact.

Well, yes, Tom conceded, but not by failing at a curse in a pinnacle moment. The moment you want a fearsome reputation, darling, you must only let me know.

“We, er… We heard about Hermione!” the other girl blurted out all at once, ringing her hands. “And– oh, Lila– we’re so sorry, and we’re so sorry for Hermione, and–”

Evelyn sighed loudly and set down her book. “It has become quite obvious that we were mistaken,” she said plainly. “While you did seem like the most likely candidate for the Heir of Slytherin, you would not do anything to harm Hermione.”

“We should never have believed it,” Orla proclaimed, talking directly over her no-nonsense friend and tugging Lila’s hand so she’d sit down beside them. “Really, Lila, we were just scared, but we should never have–”

“Have some breakfast, Potter,” Evelyn said, firm and a little bored. “A strong wind would knock you over.”

Lila nodded, appreciating the other girl’s straightforwardness. The amount of food on the Ravenclaw table was overwhelming, since she had hardly left Hermione’s side for several days, but after hardly a moment of hesitation, Orla snatched her plate from her hands and began loading it with pancakes and sausages. “Thanks,” Lila told her, unsure what else there was to say.

“Thank you, hun,” Orla corrected her softly. “We owe you one, okay? As your friends and as– as Housemates we’re supposed to be–” she choked up. “We’re supposed to look out for you younger girls.”

“Well, if you really mean that,” Lila said, an idea forming, “I could really use a favour.”

Lila wasn’t nearly as efficient at research as her best friend, but she had a place to start, since Hermione– wonderful, brilliant Hermione– had left behind everything she could need. Evelyn and Orla had both been happy to help her, and between Orla’s enthusiasm and Evelyn’s methodical process, they had worked their way through most of Hermione’s research within a few days.

“Hey,” Orla said with a frown. “There’s a bit of this book ripped out.”

“That’s not like Hermione. She would never rip a book, especially one from the library,” Lila denied. “She would say it ruined the integrity of the holy practice of book-lending.” Evelyn was nodding in agreement with Hermione’s values. “Unless…”

“Unless that was the part with the answer,” Evelyn finished grimly. “And now it’s gone.”

“Unless,” Lila corrected, a heavy feeling sinking into her stomach. “She never let go of it in the first place.”

And so the monster in the Chamber was a basilisk, and so Lila cried into Hermione’s frozen shoulder and screamed and screamed, and Tom offered no comfort. And so the roosters were dead, and the spiders were streaming out of the corners of the windows, and Lila clutched Padma Patil’s compact mirror close to her chest and cried and cried, and Tom offered no advice. 

There was one word scrawled in Hermione’s cramped, angular handwriting. Pipes .

And so she knew where the basilisk was, and so she knew what the weird creepy voice was and why she’d heard it, and so she wished she’d told Hermione so that maybe she could have figured it out faster and been okay and been okay and been okay and…

And Ginny Weasley’s body was in the Chamber of Secrets.

“Are you the Heir of Slytherin, yes or no?” asked two identical boys in unison, dropping onto the stools on either side of her. She was kneeling on one of the rickety, three-legged things for the extra height while she worked in the greenhouse, as she doubted even the most impressive of growth spurts would make the endeavour manageable when she had to be able to see things from above.

“No, I’m not,” Lila replied flatly, not looking up for her work. They weren’t the first to ask, though they were the first to corner her outside of the castle at night.

“Dammit,” the boy on her left cursed, falling back in his seat.

“I’m sorry, did you want me to be the Heir?” she asked incredulously. “Are you insane? If I was the Heir, do you really think ambushing me would be a good idea?”

“Well,” the boy on her right reasoned. “We want to get our little sister back.”

“And we’ve got loads of better people for you to take as a human sacrifice if you needed one,” the other added. “And we’re at your service to make the swap should you like.”

“I don’t need a human sacrifice, and I’m not the Heir of Slytherin,” Lila repeated. She was pruning the mandrakes upon Professor Sprout’s request. They were nearly mature, but they were much more easily subdued when their leaves were cut, and it was a task that had to be done by hand, as they were nearly impervious to spells. Once they were fully mature, in a week or so, they’d be ready to be cut up and used for the Mandrake Draught, which would be administered to Hermione and the others, and they’d all be okay. She cut the next leave with a lot more force than she needed, the shears making an awkward clanging sort of noise.

“Weasleys,” Evelyn greeted as she walked in, sounding entirely displeased with their unexpected presence, and likely their entire existence as well. “I wondered who could be bothering our little housemate here. Why am I not surprised?”

“If it isn’t the charming Miss Chambers!” Left Twin exclaimed.

“With the lovely Miss Quirke, no less!” Right Twin added, smiling a little tiredly at Orla, who flushed.

“A girl died last time the Chamber was opened,” Orla blurted out. “She died in the loo, we just learned. I think… Lila, I think she never left.”

“Moaning Myrtle,” the two boys breathed, smacking their palms to their foreheads. “Why didn’t we think of that?”

“Lockhart’s searching for Ginny now,” Orla said next, looking scared out of her wits but persevering, probably trying to convince herself of her confidence as much as she was trying to convince Lila. “We should go find him, tell him what we know.”

“Lockhart won’t be able to save her,” Lila said sadly. “He couldn’t even block Professor Snape’s spell in duelling club, remember? I sincerely doubt he’ll be able to locate and get into the Chamber of Secrets and save a girl from a monster.”

“But in his books–”

“His books lied, Orla,” Lila snapped. “He can’t do anything.”

“Then we’ve got to!” Orla exclaimed, and Lila was ready to curse the other witch for her unending stores of kindness. “Maybe he could do it with our help!”

Lila let out a long sigh, considering the mandrakes in front of her which she’d nearly finished pruning down. The restorative draught would be enough for the students waiting in the hospital wing, but they wouldn’t do anything to help poor little Ginny Weasley, lying in the Chamber of Secrets, probably already dead.

It was unfortunate, of course, but Hermione’s condition had an actual cure– and more than that, Lila knew how to help make it. She could help save her best friend in the whole world. There was nothing she could do for Ginny Weasley. But… 

But there was something she could do for her friends. She could assist the other girls in their futile excursion, and at least she could make sure they were safe. God, she hated being a good person. 

You don’t have to be, you know, Tom said, amused by the scowl forming on her face.

Yes, I do, she argued. It was what Hermione would do.

“Orla. You, me, and him,” she said, pointing at Right Twin, who grumbled that his name was George, thank you very much , “are going to go find Lockhart and see what we can do to help. “Evelyn, you and him,” she said, pointing at the other– Oi, the name’s Fred!– “should go tell the other Professors what we know, and try to track down the Headmaster.” 

You’re getting Dumbledore? You’re going to him for help? Tom repeated, dumbfounded. What in Merlin’s name is wrong with you?

He’s not going to let her die, Lila shot back. Even if you don’t like him.

“I can firecall my mum if any of the professors will let me use their floos,” Evelyn offered. “She’s the one who works with the DMLE, so we could get aurors in.”

“I can get you into any office in this school,” the boy beside her said seriously. “I don’t care what the professors say. We’re saving my little sister.”

“I’m not getting expelled for breaking into a professor’s office before I’ve taken my OWLs,” Evelyn warned, and Fred just grinned. 

“I won’t get you caught,” he said. “Promise.”

It was good that she’d gone, seeing as the Chamber had to be opened by a Parselmouth. It made her wonder who the hell could possibly have been opening it, though, since she was the only Parselmouth in school to her knowledge, and even Tom had never heard of any aside from himself.

“Obliviate!” Lockhart had called, wanting to take credit for their efforts and paint himself the tragic hero of the tale, but Orla had already pulled up a shield. The spell bounced back and hit him square in the chest.

“I did listen to you, you know,” she said sheepishly, shooting a look at Lila while she slipped her wand back into her robes. “I suppose he wasn’t quite as impressive as I thought. I’ve been waiting to shield since we caught him packing. It seemed like he was going to cast something he wouldn’t want to experience himself.”

Unfortunately, in his dazed state, Lockhart managed to cast some other spell that caused a great explosion, placing Lila on one side of a great mound of rubble and Orla and George on the other.

“Stun him,” Lila instructed. “Stun him and start clearing this shit out. I’ll do what I can in the meantime.”

Let me have control, Tom demanded, and there was something in his voice that scared her to death.

Why, she said.

Oh, darling, he said with a sigh. Because he’s me.

And so, with that, everything went wrong. That seemed to be the tagline of her life, these days. “Tom!” Lila exclaimed aloud, catching the attention of the dark haired boy standing over Ginny’s body. “Is it really you?”

“You know me,” he hissed, his attention locking onto her. “Lila Potter, the Girl-Who-Lived.”

“Of course I know you,” she replied with a frown. “I’ve always known you. But what are you doing with Ginny? We’ve got to get her up, Tom, she needs to get to the hospital wing.”

“She won’t wake,” the boy said softly. “She’s alive, but only just.”

“Well, then you’ve got to help me. If anyone could save her, it would be you. I told her brothers–”

“I don’t think you understand,” the boy said, his voice a little too high, too accented, to sound quite like her Tom. “Perhaps…” He flicked his wand, and three little words appeared in the air in shimmering letter, his full name. Another flick, and they rearranged themselves. 

“Yes, I know you’re Voldemort,” Lila said, confused. “I don’t see what that’s got to do with anything. Look, can we get going?”

Tom did something he’d never done before and forced his way to the front of their mind, effectively shoving her behind him. She felt her body straighten, a sly smile making its way onto her features. The redness she knew all too well flashed in her eyes.

“You–” the boy whispered. 

“Us,” Tom agreed. “You see what we have been reduced to? Where this path has taken us? Our downfall, our salvation…”

“Not for long,” the boy swore. “I’ve nearly got it, with this foolish blood traitor of a girl. Here, look,” he said, reaching out a spindly hand. “I’m practically corporeal now, and I’m growing stronger every minute.”

He’s killing her, Lila pushed, realising. He’s killing Ginny.

Did you think we would not do anything to live? Tom replied, that cold amusement returning at her concern. We would stop at nothing, Lila. We did stop at nothing.

If you let him kill Ginny, I’ll never forgive you, she spat, fighting against the confines of her own mind, trying to move even just a finger of her own will, but her efforts were in vain. 

“Was she really so weak?” Tom asked aloud, ignoring her protests.

“She struggled,” the boy said, seeming to relish in the fact. “She was quite strong, really, but she was no match for our will. Underneath that strength, she was a silly little girl, too preoccupied with her next Charms essay and the pressures of her place in Slytherin and her crush on the Girl-Who-Lived to stop me. And each time she came back to her diary in tears, there I was,” the boy continued. “Slipping right under all of those poorly constructed defences until she was bending to my will as though it were her own.”

Lila wanted to cry out, but she was well and properly restrained in the back of her own head, shoving against her bonds and meeting only resistance. 

“And yet you were unable to cover your tracks,” Tom whispered through Lila’s mouth. “So preoccupied with the idiocy of one little girl that a handful of others were able to discover you. You have much to learn, child. Much to learn and none to teach you.”

“I don’t need teachers,” the boy spat. “I don’t need anyone. I’m better than them,” he said, his voice barely above a breath. “I’m better than all of them. They doubt me, but they will never be able to doubt my power.”

You don’t need him with that arrogance, Lila tried instead, appealing to logic, appealing even to that perverse desire he had deep down to see her selfish, possessive. He’s a liability. We don’t need him.

We? Tom asked, mocking her childishness.

Everything else is distractions, she said desperately, certainty creeping into her voice from somewhere she didn’t recognise. The king and the queen. Everything else is distractions.

She felt Tom smirk. He knew something she didn’t, knew something that would pull the rug out from under her like he always did. “I wish,” he pronounced clearly, “that I had never made you. Creating you is, in fact, my greatest regret .”

It would be several more years before Lila would really understand what had happened. All she knew was that the dark-haired boy froze in open-mouthed terror, near-tangible shock pulsating through the Chamber. All she knew were the screams.

The aurors arrived only a few minutes later, bearing roosters like swords and shields, and if the deafening thud from the other side of the stone wall was anything to go by, the basilisk was no more. They took Ginny and Lockhart to the magical hospital, did their best to interrogate Lila, who was uninterested in sharing– since she’d essentially have to tell them about Tom , and she would die first– and by daybreak the commotion had calmed.

She was awarded a hundred house points, and Evelyn, Orla, Fred, and George were each awarded fifty, which was enough to completely secure Ravenclaw the House Cup for the second year in a row, and place Gryffindor firmly in second place. Lila had helped Professor Sprout finish tending to the mandrakes, and Professor Snape brewed the Restorative Draught, and soon enough Hermione was back with them, freaking out about third year electives and upcoming exams, just as she was supposed to have been doing the whole time.

Ginny Weasley had cried for hours and hours against Lila’s chest when she came to visit her at St. Mungo’s, and she couldn’t bring herself to stop her. She’d put together an arrangement of yarrow and verbena and lilac and budding pink roses, and had even given in and brought a vase of flowers for Lockhart, who’d been reduced to complete mindlessness and wandered the Magical Mental Maladies ward with an absent look in his eye. She still hadn’t forgiven him, though, and passed on the bunch of foxglove to a nurse with a scowl.

“You recognised him,” Ginny said at one point, when she had exhausted her tears. “Past just the diary, I mean. Who was he? How did you know him?”

“That was You-Know-Who,” she told the other girl, and Tom groaned in her head about foolishness and unnecessary displays of trust and the purpose of secrecy. “I’ve got… memories of him, I suppose. From that night. He’s got very distinctive eyes.”

“They were nice eyes,” Ginny sighed, then froze and blushed scarlet. “I mean, he killed your parents, I just…”

“They are nice eyes,” Lila agreed, detaching herself somewhat from the other girl so that she could lean back against the pillows. She’d squeezed into Ginny’s hospital bed beside her, and despite both of them being pretty small, it was an awkward fit. “Makes you wonder what happened,” she teased, elbowing Ginny lightly, and the other girl let out a wet sort of giggle.

“Yeah,” Ginny agreed, adjusting to sit next to Lila and rest her head on her shoulder, “if I looked like that, I think I would have been a bit more invested in staying human.” Tom was busy spluttering uncomfortably and somewhat incoherently in her brain. They both laughed at that, but then Ginny grew quiet. “I think I loved him a little,” she said quietly. “I mean, I know he’s evil and everything, and I know I’m only twelve, but he seemed so wonderful until he wasn’t. He was brilliantly clever, you know. I mean, of course you know. You had the diary for a bit, too, right?”

Lila had nearly forgotten that was the lie she’d told the younger witch, on Tom’s suggestion. “Mhmm,” she agreed. “He had a vision.”

“I think, maybe, if he’d let someone love him, he could have gotten it,” Ginny whispered. “And maybe that’s foolish, I know, but I like to think maybe it wasn’t all inevitable.”

They fell asleep there, leaning on each other and picturing a world where love had won out over cruelty.

Headmaster Dumbledore had said nothing for six minutes and twenty-three seconds. Lila was counting. She had been called to his office the very last night of school, and she was itching to get back to the Ravenclaw tower to see her friends. They were going to stay up all night, they’d already decided, seeing as they had already packed all their things up and laid out what they’d need for the train ride. Orla had gotten ahold of something called butterbeer, as well, claiming that they couldn’t have a proper end-of-year celebration without it, and Hermione had promised she wouldn’t try any until Lila was there, too. Having a staring contest with the Headmaster was not really something she considered more important than trying butterbeer.

He adjusted his spectacles, looking down at her carefully. She picked at her nails and itched to leave. “Is there anything you would like to tell me, my dear girl?” he asked. “Anything at all.”

“Er, not really?” Lila said with a frown. “I don’t know much of what happened in the Chamber if that’s what you mean. One minute there was a boy there with Ginny, and the next minute he was screaming and disappeared. Oh, actually, though–” she dug around in her bag– “d’you want this? It’s what was possessing Ginny, but I don’t think it can do anything anymore. She said when you write in it, the ink disappears, which seemed pretty cool in my opinion, but we tried writing in it earlier, and nothing happened.” She held up the book to show him, pointing to where she’d written “Voldemort? More like Mouldy Shorts, am I right?” to make Ginny laugh. On the next page, they’d written out Tom’s full name and tried to scramble it into different anagrams, which had led to Tom giving Lila the migraine of her life, and Ginny nearly falling off of the astronomy tower with how hard she was laughing at Mr. Tom, a Dildo Lover.

“Fascinating,” Headmaster Dumbledore whispered. “Miss Potter, this diary was filled with what I suspect was the very darkest of magics. Now… You are correct. It is nothing but parchment. You may hold onto it, if you like. Miss Weasley and yourself will get just as much from it as I would.” Lila nodded and pocketed the book. 

“What kind of magic do you think it was?” she asked when it started to look like the Headmaster was done. 

“I have many ideas, each more worrisome than the next,” he dismissed. “I would not ask you to bear the burden of that knowledge.”

You’ll tell me later, right, Tom? Lila asked.

I haven’t decided yet, he replied cryptically. I must consider each of my options now.

“Right. Well, if that was all…”

“Miss Potter,” Headmaster Dumbledore spoke up again when she was halfway out of the office. “You have done a very good deed this year.”

Lila blinked at the non-sequitur. “I know.” 

She shut the door on her way out.