Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The whispers reach Eliza's ears before she even enters the Great Hall.

"—don't know who—"

"—new student—"

"—already sitting there—"

"—American?"

She frowns when she hears Sabé's voice enthusiastically exclaim something about sky walking from the front of the crowd, the choppy pieces of information floating through the throng of students in front of Eliza refusing to connect in her brain.

Next to Eliza, Cody shoots her a similar look of confusion. "What's going on?"

"Uh—a new student is . . . walking across the sky in the Great Hall?"

Cody stares at her for a moment. "Like . . . the bewitched ceiling above the dining tables? How the hell?"

Eliza shrugs, playing with the worn-down strap of her wristwatch. "Hey, I'm just the messenger." She turns to the portrait of a jolly-looking wizard in flowy silk pajamas that's currently next to her on the stone wall of the Entrance Hall. "That's what you heard too, right?"

The portrait beams. "I'm not sure, dear, but good for them!"

Eliza watches as Cody holds up his palm suddenly before tilting his head and leaning forward, evidently having caught another tail of the rumor mill from someone talking in front of him. After a moment, he straightens proudly. "I got it. Dormé is saying that it's a female student named Sky Walker."

"Relaying rumors from Dormé?" Eliza grins. "You know, Cody, you really are a gossip girl." Ignoring the affronted expression on her friend's face, she hums musingly. "Sky Walker does sound like a very American na—"

The words are barely past her lips when a small blur shoots sideways through the crowd and suddenly barrels into her, nearly knocking her over.

"What the—"

"Sorry!" the small blur squeaks, and through the vertigo clouding Eliza's vision, she watches as it slowly morphs into the shape of Ahsoka Tano.

"Where'd you just come from?" asks Cody, leaning over Eliza's shoulder and looking at Ahsoka in alarm. "Weren't you right behind us?"

Straightening, Ahsoka shoulders in between him and Eliza, twirling at her dyed blue-and-white hair sheepishly as she starts walking with them. "I was, but I realized right before we were about to enter the castle that I left my school bag with all my school books on the train. I had to rush back and ride one of those invisible horses back to the train before it left!" She hoists up the thick bag slung over her shoulder as if to prove her story.

"You left your entire school bag on the train?" asks Cody disapprovingly, while Eliza gapes at Ahsoka in disbelief. "You rode a thestral?"

Ahsoka waves her hand dismissively. "It was just like riding a broom." She then turns belligerently to Cody, jabbing a finger towards his face. "And, in my defense, you were the one who asked to borrow my bag to read Advanced Potion-Making so you could brew a whole bloody potion in the compartment! And then you left my bag under your seat!"

"I was just caught up in my brewing, alright? You need to let a potioneer-in-the-making do his thing."

"You made Lizzy bring a whole sliced lemon for your brewing, for Merlin's sake! Why were you even brewing a potion on the Hogwarts Express?"

"A potioneer brews whenever he feels like he needs to!"

Eliza watches half-amusedly and half-fondly as her two friends begin to bicker. Although it's a usual occurrence, she knows neither of them really mean any of the playful insults they hurl at each other.

Ahsoka and Cody are her closest friends at Hogwarts. She still remembers when she met them on the first day of her first year—Cody had been the one who'd glimpsed her brand-new copy of Hogwarts: A History lying on the seat through the crack in her compartment door on the Hogwarts Express, and he'd eagerly wedged himself in to ask if he could read it. They'd rode all the way to school together, and when they'd arrived and boarded the boats that took them to the castle, a certain small, blue-and-white-haired girl on their boat had nearly tipped it over in her failed attempts to coax the Giant Squid out from the Black Lake with owl pellets.

While Cody had furiously admonished Ahsoka pedantically, causing them to get into their first-ever bickering match before school had even started, Eliza hadn't really minded—after all, she hadn't known anything about a giant squid.

In fact, she hadn't known anything at all.

You see, Eliza, your father was a peculiar man.

Not just a man—a wizard. And she hadn't known, because he'd died before she was born, and her mum never spoke about him, and all of a sudden a random woman in a pointed hat was showing up on her doorstep and shoving a letter addressed to Eliza Walsh in her face claiming that she was a witch, and her mum was sitting her down and explaining that her dad was a wizard, and I'm so sorry I never told you, because I hoped that if you didn't know, then you wouldn't get taken away from me too, and she was taken to a odd alley with odd shops and odd people in robes and pointed hats, and her bag was stuffed with books on subjects she never knew existed and cauldrons of all sizes and materials and a wand, for god's sake, and then she was suddenly being whisked away to a school named Hogwarts—

How time flies, Eliza thinks to herself in present time, craning her neck to get a good look at the current scene around her. She, Cody, and Ahsoka are squished in the middle of a massive group of students filing into the Great Hall. All around her, people are jostling each other, chatting boisterously and casting Cooling Charms to escape the sweltering heat of the mob. The high energy and loud voices seem to bounce off the expansive stone walls of the Entrance Hall, but Eliza gets it.

After all, it's the start of their seventh-year, which means they finally get to be the first ones into the Great Hall for the Start-of-Term Feast. Which is kind of a big deal.

Tonight, the Entrance Hall is extra-packed. Behind their crowd of seventh-years are the rambunctious sixth-years, and then fifth-years, and so on, with the overall swarm of eager adolescents so massive that it pours straight out of the giant castle doors. Small groups of students sit on the steps of the wide, sweeping marble staircase that leads to the front of the hall, leaning on the ornate balusters as they chatter excitedly amongst themselves. The paned windows across the hall ripple, bathing the occupants below with the muted light of evening rays of sunlight, the glow blending with the omnipresent gold luminescent within the hall, courtesy of the flaming torches lit upon the stone walls and their countless candelabra neighbors.

The excited energy of the hall seems to have even infected the innumerable portraits that adorn the walls, their gleaming golden frames expanding upwards on the high, expansive stone walls of the room towards a ceiling too high to make out. Most of the inhabitants are wide awake, interacting brightly with each other or students below—Eliza spots a portrait of a group of witches by the entrance doors doing some sort of Irish jig for a large group of cheering underclassmen.

She refuses to let the sudden simmering emotion of bittersweet melancholy in her chest rise any further. This is the last time she'll enter the Great Hall on a first day at Hogwarts, which is a sad fact that she doesn't really want to dwell on, but it seems to be piercing her like a slow needle regardless. The magnificence of the Entrance Hall, the brilliance of Hogwarts's architecture and the warmth of its omnipresent homely ambience—it never fails to take her breath away, and she knows that nowhere will ever really ever quite beat here.

Eliza feels a soft hand slide into her own palm, and she looks down to see Ahsoka staring at her knowingly. She squeezes Eliza's hand. "You're thinking emotional thoughts, aren't you?"

"I—" Eliza falters, grinning. "How do you know?"

"Lizzy, I always see through you—you're the most sentimental person I know."

"You are very sentimental," Cody interjects. "You still have that card I made for your birthday in second year hung up on your dorm wall."

"What did you expect me to do with it—throw it away?"

"It is kind of ugly," Ahsoka mutters playfully, and Cody glares at her. "Joking, Cody! I still have the one you made me in second year, too."

The crowd seems to have finally dispersed slightly, and now they're rapidly nearing the tall double doors of the Great Hall, carved with archaic designs and thrown wide open

"Go, go, go!" Ahsoka exclaims, tightening her grip on Eliza with her left hand and grabbing Cody with her right, dragging them forward, and then the doors are suddenly right overhead, and they're running past the ivory archway and the suits of armor embellished on the walls, the insentient knights standing grandly upon stone ledges, and they burst into the Great Hall.

Eliza realizes she's laughing as she lets herself get pulled along by Ahsoka towards the Slytherin table. All around her, similar sentiments flow through the crowd, and lively laughter echoes across the hall as other students do the same, running full-speed into the hall without a care in the world.

Glancing around the Great Hall, she catches the eye of Rex, Cody's twin brother, near the Gryffindor table across the hall, and gives him a small wave, which he reciprocates with an eager grin.

Rex and Cody may look identical, with their tan skin and close-cropped dark hair (though Rex's is dyed blonde), but their personalities can't be more different—while Rex is wilder and much more upbeat, playing up to his Gryffindor traits, Eliza can best describe Cody's demeanor as that of a Muggle lawyer—logical, level-headed, and clever. It's never difficult to tell which twin is which.

Amidst all the disarray from the continuous stream of underclassmen students pouring into the hall from behind, she watches as a few Ravenclaws slow down by the center of the Great Hall and stare up in amazement.

If Muggles knew of the Great Hall's existence, Eliza thinks as she stares up along with them, they'd place it at the very top of the Seven Wonders of the World list.

Four long tables extend from one end of the hall to the other, spaced evenly to fit symmetrically. There's one flagged central pathway down the hall—two House tables flanking each side of it—that leads to a raised platform at the other end of the hall: the High Table. Royal blue drapes hang behind the table to create a backdrop, and large, golden-framed portraits adorn the walls, extending all throughout the hall. Thousands and thousands of candles float in midair above, flickering slightly and illuminating the entire space with a golden glow.

Most splendid of all—there's no ceiling. At least, there looks to be none—instead of a solid roof above the hall, there's a black sky, fading further and further into the heavens. Against the walls, the archways, which curve inwards on either side to no doubt support the actual ceiling, look to be disappearing into the blackness above, its architecture fading away into the atmosphere. The sky glitters with stars, which are dotted all over the inky canvas, and it feels as though Eliza can just reach up, and she'll be swirled up and transported into a different world.

Something about how the presence of magic here feels so omnipresent, so magnificent, makes her speechless every time she steps foot into the hall, and there isn't any exception now.

Ahsoka pauses suddenly, breaking Eliza away from her thoughts. "Who's that?" She's staring at something over Eliza's shoulder, and Eliza turns, following her line of vision.

Immediately, the discrepancy is obvious.

A lone figure is already seated at the very far end of the Slytherin table. Long brown hair curls around his neck, continuing upwards to extend over his forehead in loose waves, though a few strands had fallen and were brushing against his eyebrows. His hair does nothing to hide his carved cheekbones and strong jaw—even from afar, Eliza can make out the prominence of his features.

He's wearing customary black robes and deftly twirling a wand around in his right hand, the spinning motion nearly blurring with speed. The warm luminance of the thousands and thousands of flickering candles floating in midair above cast a glow onto his front, illuminating the green-and-silver thread of the embroidered patch on his robes. A tie of the same Slytherin colors as the House patch glints slightly, peeking out from below his collar.

He turns and looks up suddenly, and—

His eyes. They're dark and piercing, shadowed by his brow bone and framed by his equally-dark eyebrows.

Eliza shivers.

"Sky Walker," she murmurs. She ignores Ahsoka's questioning look, inexplicably unable to tear her gaze away from the young man who was apparently the new student that everyone had been whispering about.

"That's the new student?" asks Cody, similarly staring at the young man in befuddlement. He scratches his neck. "I thought Dorra said he was a she."

"Don't trust everything you hear, Cody," says Ahsoka, smirking as she pats Cody on the shoulder and strides past them. "C'mon! Let's get good seats so we can watch the Sorting!"

Eliza follows her friend almost robotically, still staring in the general direction of Sky Walker, even as she takes a seat at the Slytherin table, and Ahsoka and Cody slide onto the bench across from her.

She can't explain it—there's something about him that makes her want to just keep staring and analyzing, drawing her gaze like he's a mesmerizing puzzle that she needs to solve in one sitting.

Which is so weird—she doesn't even know him! But Eliza likes to think of herself as a fairly curious person, which she thinks most people around her can attest to. She likes spending her free time reading murder mysteries, pondering whodunits and roping a disgruntled Cody into listening to her long theories for numerous conspiracies and mysteries from Muggle history and media.

But it goes further than just that—she's an innately curious person. She likes to understand things, to make things make sense, which may be helpful motivation for studying and completing her schoolwork, but not so much for trying to enjoy her last Start-of-Term Feast without mulling over the circumstances of some random new student.

But she can't help it!

Who is he? Why is he here? He's got to be at least a sixth-year. New students are rare to begin with, and an upperclassman at that?

Eliza observes him as inconspicuously as she can. He's set his wand down and is now talking to a gaggle of girls who'd plopped themselves down next to him and crowded around him with eager expressions. Eliza sees his lips move, but she can't hear what he's saying.

She's about to ask Cody if he's sure he heard that the new student's name is Sky Walker when there's the resounding loud echo of the clearing of a throat that bounces off the walls of the Great Hall. The buzz of the entire hall—which is practically packed at this point—quiets down, and every single head swivels towards the front of the Great Hall, where a wizard in sweeping white robes has just risen from the High Table and is standing behind a golden podium with his arms spread wide.

"Welcome," comes the booming voice of Headmaster Qui-Gon Jinn, "to the beginning of another wonderful year at Hogwarts!" As he says so, a large mass of what are clearly first-years move into the Great Hall from its entrance, all huddled together as they shuffle nervously down the central path of the hall before squeezing into a small sea in front of the High Table.

Glad for a distraction, Eliza observes the High Table for the first time since she's entered the Great Hall. As always, its occupants are a diverse mix of individuals from all over the country, beginning with the Divination professor, Professor Yoda—despite circulating rumors, still no one knows the complete palette of his genetic makeup (though she's heard rumors about goblin or elf blood). Next to him is Professor Kenobi, who teaches Transfiguration, and he's conversing with the very hairy and very tall Gamekeeper, Chewie, whose actual name is Chewbacca but who gruffly tells everyone to never call him that.

The professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts, Professor Windu, is absent from his usual spot, which is instead oddly taken up by the school caretaker, Grievous, a tall, hunched man with a narrow face and permanent scowl. Professors Unduli, Organa, Plo Koon, and Fisto, who teach Astronomy, Ancient Runes, Alchemy, and Arithmancy respectively, are immersed in what seems to be a very riveting conversation, and Professor Kryze, the Muggle Studies professor, is listening intently from the side. The History of Magic professor, Professor Ceethreepio—or Professor Cee, as everyone calls him—looks to be blabbering incessantly to a grumpy-looking Professor Dooku, who teaches Potions and who looks like he wishes he was anywhere but here. The same scene is reflected perfectly at the other end of the High Table, where Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures professors Maul and Bane look like they're being forced to listen to Mister Binks, the clumsy and talkative librarian with strangely-large ears sitting in-between them.

"Now, before I christen your ears with wise words and fill your tables with good food," declares Headmaster Jinn, his eyes twinkling, "Professor Mothma will do the honor of initiating our Sorting!"

The Charms professor, Professor Mon Mothma, a tall, lithe woman with short, side-swept auburn hair, steps forward from the side of the hall, levitating a small stool and very frayed, patchy head with her. She sets the stool down before the crowd of first-years and the hat—the Sorting Hat—on top of the stool, and not one second after she steps away, a long seam rips open along the brim of the hat, and it bursts into song.

Across the table, Ahsoka expertly flicks her wand, and a small scroll shoots out of her robes. She spreads it open and grins; without words, Eliza and Cody both lean forward, and the three of them huddle together over the parchment as they concentrate heavily on the lyrics of the Hat's song for the year.

On the train ride to the castle earlier, they'd written down all four predictions for what adjectives that the Sorting Hat would use to describe Slytherin in its song for this year's Sorting, a practice they'd begun doing out of sheer boredom at the beginning of their fifth year.

Right now, they have cunning, resourceful, determined, and confident scrawled down—quite a strong list, Eliza has to admit. Maybe they can beat last year's record.

"Or maybe you're a Slytherin," comes the Hat's croaky voice, and they all perk up, "and you're a cunning soul. Among ambitious folk you belong, determined to reach your goal."

"That's two less than we got last year." Ahsoka sighs, counting off on her fingers as the Great Hall erupts in a smattering of applause for the end of the Sorting Hat's song. Next to her, Cody looks genuinely disappointed.

"I think the Hat's running out of adjectives to use," whispers Eliza. "It's used cunning and ambitious in both its songs for the past two years."

"Damn. We should've put ambitious down then."

Professor Mothma is now standing in front of the once-more inanimate Sorting Hat again, unrolling an extremely long piece of parchment in her hands.

"When I call your name," she announces to the trembling first-years before her, "please step forward and place the Sorting Hat onto your head."

Eliza finds herself immediately tuning the Sorting out as the first first-year called steps up to the stool timidly, and almost against her will, her eyes swivel slightly to the left.

Sky Walker. That can't be his name, right? Eliza knows people who have gender-neutral first names, like Alex Pernille, a third-year Slytherin girl, and Riley Jones, a sixth-year Hufflepuff boy. But Sky is a very feminine name, and as she surreptitiously glances at him through her peripheral vision, she internally scoffs. That can't be it. He looks like he's a Jackson or Adrian. . . . Or something.

She watches as Sabé and Dormé, two girls from the gaggle that had surrounded the new student earlier, eagerly lean across the table simultaneously to hear something he says. Next to them are a few other girls, also listening with rapt attention and extra-wide smiles, and in the very middle of them is Padmé Amidala.

Eliza likes Padmé. She's the Head Girl for the year, along with Head Boy Brett Lurvette from Ravenclaw, and she's always struck Eliza as very kind and disciplined. While they're not bosom buddies, they're on friendly terms, and Eliza will smile at Padmé and make small talk if she comes across her in the common room.

Padmé also seems to be the only one not twirling her hair or batting her eyelashes every ten seconds at Sky Walker like most of the others around her are doing, which makes for a very odd scene of seven or so girls simply staring intently at Sky Walker as they lean as close as possible and smile widely, all playing with their hair and powering their lashes to run at a mile a minute. Even the other Slytherins sitting nearby give the strange scene slightly fearful frowns.

It takes a minute for Eliza to process that the first Slytherin of the night was just Sorted, and she mechanically joins the rest of her housemates in clapping as the tiny first-year boy scurries over. The minutes seem to flow by as the rest of the Sorting unfolds, and when the long expanse of wood before Eliza finally magically fills with plates and plates of heaping food, her stomach gives a grumble of relief.

At the front of the hall, Headmaster Jinn is on his feet again, spreading his arms. There's a moment of silence, and then—

"Feast!" he cries, and the whole hall erupts in applause.

"So we have a new student in Slytherin," remarks Ahsoka, turning away from the Headmaster and looking at Sky Walker curiously as she piles her plate with enough food to feed a village. "That's pretty rare. I wonder why he's here."

"He wasn't on the train, was he?" asks Eliza, frowning as she tries to recall if she caught any glimpse of long, curling brown waves on the Hogwarts Express.

"Obviously not!" says Aayla Secura, the tall, blue-haired Keeper on the Slytherin Quidditch team, from a few seats down the table. She leans forward and lowers her voice. "My mum works to maintain the Hogwarts student registrar, and what I heard is that he came from overseas—Ilvermorny, you know? The American school. Apparently, his mum knows Headmaster Jinn or something and sent him here for his seventh year."

Next to Aayla, Barriss Offee blinks owlishly, the smattering of freckles across her cheeks and nose bridge seemingly moving with the motion. "Why would he withdraw from Ilvermorny to come here? My cousin goes to Ilvermorny—it's a fine school."

"Change of environment, maybe," suggests Cody, spearing a green bean with his fork. He chews on it thoughtfully. "That's why my dad quit being an Auror to work in the local library—he said the work became too repet—" He breaks off, grimacing as Ahsoka reaches across his plate to jab a sausage with her fork. "You know, your utensil usage is really horrifying."

Aayla ignores Cody's protests over Ahsoka stealing singular peppermint humbugs off his plate, shrugging and poking at her own food. "Could be that. I'm not too sure."

"Is his name really Sky Walker?" Eliza blurts out, because it's grating against her brain for some reason, and she has a niggling feeling that there's some information she's missing.

"Oh—yeah, it is. Anakin Skywalker, yeah. Strange name if you ask me."

Anakin Skywalker.

"Oh," Eliza can only say, the name already expanding in the forefront of her brain.

Anakin Skywalker.

That is a strange name—even stranger than the name Sky Walker.

But as she catches another glimpse of him from the corner of her eyes, the name rolling across her tongue silently, and numerous other unanswered questions rolling around in her mind, she thinks that it does sort of fit.

Chapter Text

Eliza's first class of seventh year is Potions.

She sits next to Asajj Ventress, a fellow Slytherin with a short pixie cut, extremely pale skin that makes Eliza sometimes wonder if she secretly has vampire genes, and an intimidating glare that's intense enough to spook the Bloody Baron. In the row behind them are Cody and Ahsoka, and Rex isn't far away, either. The rest of the classroom is scattered with a variety of seventh-year students, all from different Houses but all in the classroom to take N.E.W.T. Potions. By the front of the classroom, the Potions professor, Professor Dooku, lurks as he always does, pacing around and lecturing about the lesson material, his robes sweeping and his silver hair heavily slicked back with gel in a hairstyle that makes him look permanently bald from certain angles.

It's about ten minutes into the lecture, and Eliza can't help but tune Dooku out—she already knows all about the Draught of Living Death, having heard enough about it from Cody's incessant blabbering on certain random Potions throughout the years to probably write a ten-foot-long essay on it. Instead, she turns her head slightly, observing her surroundings and taking in the room around her.

The gray stone walls of the classroom, which are lined with wooden shelves and cupboards, curve upwards to create a domed ceiling. An array of jars containing pickled animals, mysteriously bubbling liquids, and various other potions ingredients don the shelves, and black matte desks are scattered across the classroom, each fit with two matching stools that are currently occupied by the students in the class.

In one corner of the room is a student supply cupboard, and in another stands a gigantic basin. A stone gargoyle is crouched atop of the basin, a steady stream of water pouring out of its mouth. The few candles littered across the walls shine light throughout the classroom, though it clearly isn't enough—there's a dim, hazy atmosphere all over, which is only helped by the fumes that are steadily rising from the large black cauldron at the front of the classroom. Behind the cauldron is a blackboard that stretches from one wall to another, with scribbled chalk instructions visible upon it and a fat leather armchair to its side.

Dooku is in the middle of pointing at the large black cauldron at the front and loudly proclaiming about the properties of the Draught of Living Death when the door opens with a BANG!, and Anakin Skywalker walks into the classroom.

At the sound, Dooku stops lecturing, and he, along with every single student in the room—Eliza included—turns to stare at the newcomer.

Up until now, Anakin Skywalker has completely slipped Eliza's mind. After the Start-of-Feast ended last night, she dimly remembers seeing him disappear into the mass of students leaving for the dorms from the corner of her eye while she'd been making her way to the other side of the Great Hall towards the Gryffindor table. Her, Ahsoka, and Cody had stayed back, mingling with Rex and their Gryffindors friends so they could all catch up—after all, with Rex and Cody being siblings, they interact with each other's friends fairly often, which meant that throughout the years, Eliza and Ahsoka had also gotten close with a good bit of Rex's Gryffindor friends.

After a grumpy Grievous had kicked them out of the Great Hall for "loitering" at the end of the night, the hallways had almost been empty with the closeness of curfew looming by then, and they'd had to rush back to the Slytherin Common Room. Eliza and Ahsoka had waved goodbye to Cody at the top of the stairs in the back of the common room that diverged into two—the boy's and girl's dorms—before going up the split path on the right and entering the dorm they shared with Aayla, Barriss, and Asajj. Eliza had gone to sleep stomach full, content to be back at Hogwarts, and the name Anakin Skywalker forgotten, far from any crevice in her mind.

Now, though, as she stares at the figure by the doorway, she realizes just how tall Anakin is.

Being of average height, Eliza isn't short by any means, but Anakin seems to tower over her, even from a distance. She hadn't noticed yesterday, since he'd been sitting down in the Great Hall, but she can estimate he had a good eight inches over her at the least. His height is only exemplified by his lean stature, with his sweeping robes and broad shoulders seeming to fill out the entire door frame.

Eliza supposes it's not just his physical height but his aura, as well—it's like he can command attention without even moving or talking. She notices a few curious Ravenclaws next to her whispering and glancing at him, and another pair of Hufflepuffs are looking at him with slightly slack jaws. Meanwhile, Sabé and Dormé are not-so-surreptitiously nudging each other at the front of the classroom and giggling; at the desk adjacent to her friends, Padmé is staring at Anakin with an almost bemused expression, like she can't comprehend that one single person can automatically direct so much focus onto himself with just his presence.

Anakin opens his mouth, probably to spew an excuse for his lateness—

Dooku beats him to it, however, eyes gleaming as he hurries over. "Ah! You must be Mr. Skywalker, our new student."

Eliza sees the unbridled glint of eagerness in Dooku's eyes and has to stop herself from rolling her eyes. Dooku is known for collecting students like prized possessions, and she doesn't even need Legilimency to know that he's imagining this new, mysterious, and handsome student as a possible addition to his trophy case of talented, clever, and well-connected students.

Anakin dips his head slightly, his hands folded behind his back and a few strands of his brown waves brushing against his brow bone. "I'm sorry for arriving late, Professor," he starts, and the thickness of his American accent is glaringly obvious. "I've been in Headmaster Jinn's office since this morning sorting a few things out. He accidentally put me down for regular Potions and had to adjust my schedule to put me into this N.E.W.T. Potions class."

Dooku practically swoons. "Not to worry, Mr Skywalker!" he says excitedly, ushering Anakin towards the middle of the classroom, right towards the empty seat next to Rex. "Here—have a seat next to Mr. Fett."

Eliza grimaces, and she's not the only one. Rex holds the greatest record in Hogwarts history for the number of blown-up potions in class, so Eliza doesn't even know why he signed up for N.E.W.T. Potions. Everyone, even Rex himself, knows how horrid he is at Potions—except Anakin, who sits down and gives Rex a polite nod, oblivious to the sad, apologetic look the boy is aiming at him.

Eliza suddenly feels a poke to her upper arm. She turns to see Asajj staring at Anakin intensely.

"Who is that?" Asajj whispers.

"New student," Eliza murmurs. In response, Asajj only stares at Anakin harder, as if trying to read him by glare alone.

Unlike Sabé and Dormé's giddy stares, Eliza knows Asajj's is one of scrutiny only. After all, Eliza knows that a large source of pride for Asajj is the fact that she's maintained the highest mark in Potions of their entire class for the past six years, so even the possibility of someone swooping in to dethrone her from that is a point of worry.

It turns out, however, that any concern Asajj has regarding Anakin is all void.

"Time's up!" announces Dooku loudly an hour later, after he'd assigned them all to brew the Draught of Living Death in pairs at their desks. Eliza and Asajj had finished ten minutes early, and as Eliza watches Dooku bustle around the classroom, inspecting each pair of students' potions, she feels pretty confident in their work.

Sure enough, when Dooku reaches Eliza and Asajj's desk, he gives a nod.

"Well done, Miss Ventress and Miss Walsh!" he says approvingly.

Eliza is pretty competent in Potions herself, but having Asajj as her Potions partner is just an added perk of less stress. She winces when she thinks back to when she tried sitting next to Ahsoka in fifth year—she'd never been subject to so many up-close potions explosions in her life, almost enough to rival Rex's streak. Ahsoka herself had volunteered to sit next to Cody in Potions from then on, which worked fine anyway, since Cody—as an aspiring potioneer—prefers getting all the potions experience he can get and is content with letting Ahsoka just read directions to him during brewing.

As Dooku continues down the row of desks, Eliza notices a trail of dark smoke floating through the air. She follows it, frowning, until she finds herself staring at the cauldron in front of Anakin and Rex. Both boys look resigned—even Anakin is glancing down at his potion with a passive expression on his face.

"It's not looking good for Skywalker," she hears Ahsoka whisper from behind her.

Sure enough, as Dooku ventures over, his steps slow down, and he cautiously peers into Anakin and Rex's cauldron with a frown. Eliza and Asajj share a smirk when they see Dooku's visible disappointment at not being able to add another shiny trophy to his collection.

"Well," Dooku says weakly. "I suppose there is room for improvement, but I applaud the effort."

He then moves onto the next pair's cauldron, and the gazes of the other students in the classroom move with him as he tests out the potion, but Eliza finds that her eyes are stuck on Anakin.

To her surprise, she sees his jaw clench tightly as he stares down at his own failed potion.

Hm.

—

After class, when Eliza walks out of the classroom with Asajj, Ahsoka, and Cody, it doesn't take long before the topic of the conversation turns swiftly towards Anakin.

"Why would he leave Ilvermorny though?" Eliza muses, fiddling with her House patch on the front of her robes, deep in thought as they weave through groups of students walking in the corridor in the opposite direction. "Just to come halfway across the world for his last year of education?"

Asajj hums. "That is really weird. And inconvenient."

Ahsoka squints at the tall figure of Anakin walking alone in front of them in the corridor, a good few steps ahead so that he's conveniently out of earshot. "You think something's wrong with him? What if he actually got kicked out of Ilvermorny or something?"

Eliza considers it. "Maybe?" She shook her head. "But from what Aayla said last night, it sounded like his mum just withdrew him and sent him to Hogwarts without any major reason."

"Maybe it's because he isn't a pureblood," Cody suggests.

There's a pause as they all stare at him.

"Uh, what does blood-status have to do with this?" Ahsoka asks in confusion.

Cody shrugs. "I remember reading a statistic somewhere when I was researching for a class essay that said that pureblood families are more likely to keep their children's institution of study constant with where they studied so that the family bloodline stays continuous with one educational institution. If what Aayla said about Skywalker's mum sending him here is true, then maybe it can be attributed to his family values not aligning with pureblood ones." He pauses. "Though I don't know how direct that correlation is.

At Cody's words, Eliza can't help but perk up. "What if he's a half-blood like me?"

As surprising as it is, Slytherin half-bloods are a minority in her year, along with Muggleborns—other than herself, Eliza only knew of one other seventh-year Slytherin half-blood. Ahsoka is the only Muggleborn in the House, while Cody and most everybody else she knows are purebloods. While it's not like Eliza's ostracized for her blood status or anything, it would be nice to have just another half-blood her age in Slytherin.

"Why don't you just ask him?" asks Asajj, ever so practical.

Eliza blinks. "Ask him if he's a half-blood?"

"Yeah."

"Oh. I—well, I mean, it's—awkward," she stammers.

But even as the words come out of her own mouth, she feels befuddlement rising in her chest. After all, why doesn't she just ask him? It's just a simple question out of curiosity with no malicious intent, and it's not like Eliza has trouble socially communicating with anyone. She's never had any problem conversing with or getting to know new people, so why can't she just approach Anakin, tap him on the shoulder, exchange introductions, and ask him?

But for some inexplicable reason, just the mere thought of doing that makes her heart rate increase rapidly.

Asajj looks at Eliza casually. "I'll just ask for you then."

There's a good second that passes as Eliza processes what exactly Asajj is implying before her eyes widen and she launches forward. "Asajj—wait, what are you—"

Her protests fall on deaf ears.

"Hey, Skywalker!" calls Asajj loudly.

"Asajj, no," Eliza hisses desperately.

Too late. In front of them, about ten feet ahead, Anakin turns at the sound of his name, as do practically all the other people in the corridor due Asajj's loud voice. Even the group of girls with Padmé, Sabé, and Dormé—who've all been walking a few steps ahead as well—pause their conversation to look back at Asajj.

Asajj points directly at Eliza. "My friend here was wondering what your blood status is."

Every pair of eyeballs in the vicinity swivel onto Eliza, Skywalker's included, and she wants to melt right into the floor, both from the sudden attention and Asajj's extremely-misconstrued question. She senses Ahsoka and Cody's commiserating glances from next to her—they're familiar with Asajj's blunt nature, and they know when it's hopeless to stop it.

Eliza forces herself to laugh, a painfully-awkward noise that almost seems to echo in the otherwise quiet corridor. "No, that's n—"

"Why do you want to know that?" Skywalker's voice cuts through defensively, carrying through the air. His eyebrows are pulled down dangerously as he stares directly at Eliza, having stopped walking.

Great. She tries not to gulp. Now he probably thinks she's sort of pure-blood supremacist who actually cares about people's blood statuses. A wonderful first impression.

She opens her mouth to clarify that she only was wondering if they shared the same blood-status, when he interjects again:

"I'm a Muggleborn, if that matters to you," he says, his stare positively lethal. Even with the short distance, his eyes are piercing, and they seem to bore dark holes straight through Eliza's body.

Oh, brilliant. She fights the urge to throw herself out the nearest window. "No, it—"

"Ooh!" interjects Sabé from the side, perking up. "I heard Muggles like to go to beaches." She flutters her eyelashes at Anakin, twisting her long hair. "Do you like going to the beach?"

Eliza hears Ahsoka scoff next to her.

Anakin directs his frown onto Sabé, looking at her as though she's a slow hippogriff. "I don't like sand," he says bluntly, before turning away and leaving a puzzled Sabé standing there. The blunt nature of his response almost makes Eliza laugh before she remembers her current predicament and sobers quickly.

"Anyway," Anakin continues, staring hard at Eliza and giving her absolutely no time to get any words out. "I'm not interested in explaining my blood status to you. I don't believe that's anything of importance to you at all." He gives her one final glare, the tone of finality in his words ringing clear, before whirling back around and turning into a side corridor to the left, disappearing from view and leaving her standing behind and staring at where he'd just been standing, swallowing a sour taste in her mouth and wondering what in the world just happened.

"Well," says Asajj neutrally, looking at Eliza. "Now you know he's not a half-blood."