ANANKE

It would be satisfying to say that her first time practicing dark magic in Hogwarts was some sort of turning point in life for Ananke.

Satisfying - because who doesn't love character development? - but untrue.

Suffice to say, Ananke did not wake up the next day with a huge beaming smile painted across her face, thinking Wow. I've just gotten away with something that's legally as bad as murder in Wizarding Britain. I'm invincible! and start dreaming up ways to become the next Dark Lord.

Apart from a sudden influx of energy that left her more awake than she'd felt since she'd started Hogwarts, nothing really happened except congratulations, you don't feel like a rotting inferi.

Life ticks on, and the weeks pass in a blur. Transfiguration is terrible. Defence Against the Dark Arts is physically painful. She spends most of her time holed up in the library with Hermione - who else? - and her Saturday mornings in a room full of cobwebs with Magick Moste Evile splayed on her lap.

For a witch who has lived a great portion of her short life in one location, the monotony is comforting. But all good things must come to an end, and the peaceful rhythm Ananke settles into is broken by Hermione and Ron. Or more specifically, their developing feud.

It's surprising, in a way, that they argue so much; they do it because they are different, but they are so different that it is difficult to imagine them interacting with each other long enough to really disagree. But they do, and when their squabbling gets to the point that Professor McGonagall seems to have half a mind to march over to the Gryffindor corner of the classroom and separate them, Ananke knows she has to step in.

Frankly, she's not quite sure what they're even arguing about. She and Harry, both equally tired of their friends, have by mutual unspoken agreement partnered up with each other on the other side of the classroom, too far away to hear anything but an indistinct series of hisses from Ron and Hermione's voice migrating to a higher pitch. It's something about Ron being a rule-breaking delinquent, if she has to guess. That's usually what they argue about.

She's too far away to do anything about it right now, and besides, she's not even sure she wants to. It's not her responsibility. Except, she's Hermione's friend (maybe) now, so it sort of is.

Tomorrow. She'll say something tomorrow. In the meantime...

They've finished with the match-to-needle transformation (even Ananke's mostly got it down, only fifth last in the year), and now they're working on something no less taxing: changing the shape of an object. They're using the needles they've already transformed, because McGonagall's always looking for ways to make them practise, and once they've mastered changing the shape of a needle into a four-pronged fork, they'll work on changing matchsticks into forks.

"I'm pretty sure it's more of a jab," Harry says, brow furrowed as he peers down at the needle in front of him. "Circle, flourish, then jab. Like this." He waves his wand in a way that almost takes her eye out. Nothing happens.

Ananke disagrees. "It looked like more of a circle, flourish, then slash. Diagonally."

Ananke shows him. It's correct, she knows it's correct. The magic beneath her skin raises it's head  like a coiled serpents, snaking down her arm, through to her finger, into the tip of her raised wand -

And then nothing. The magic lowers its head, leaving her grasping at its echoes.

Across the classroom, Hermione seems to say something similar to Ron, but her demonstration actually turns the needle into a fork. Ron scowls, but next to Ananke, Harry simply says, "Huh. I think you're right."

Just then, the needle seems to slide back into itself, turning back into a match. Harry groans. He waves his wand again, and gradually the match begins to sharpen and go silvery.

Ananke glances down at her own needle, which has thankfully not turned back into a match. She waves her wand again. This time, the needle seems to melt and morph into a fork. A fork with only two prongs, but still. Improvement. She feels an unwelcome urge to elbow Harry in the side and tell him Look, look, I did it!

She doesn't, obviously, because Hermione's done similar things before and Ananke did not appreciate it and they were probably sort-of friends.

Harry slashes his wand at his re-transformed needle, which turns into a fork. Four prongs and all. Ananke thinks she would be frustrated if she had not already accepted her hopelessness at Transfiguration.

She tells him, "You're good at this," hoping it comes out as charitable and friendly. It does not.

"Thanks," Harry says, equally stilted.

They work in silence for what could be either a minute or ten. Across the classroom, Seamus sets Ron and Hermione's desk on fire. McGonagall puts it out with a quick wave of her wand, lips pinched. Hermione and Ron return to their argument.

She catches Harry rolling his eyes. "Insufferable, aren't they?" she offers.

He nods. "Ever since we found the trapdoor, she's been even worse."

Before Ananke can point out that Ron is just as much the aggressor as Hermione, or ask why in the name of Morgana he's going on about trapdoors, the bell rings and she loses sight of him in the ensuing stampede to the door.

---

All Ananke's attempts to corner Harry in the common room fail. When she asks him about the trapdoor, he immediately looks shifty and says, "Oh, Hermione didn't tell you?" followed by, "Forget I said that," and, "It's nothing, really."

His word spark off a dim memory of Hermione rushing to her bed the night after Draco and Harry's duel, rambling about something she probably should have paid more attention to. Part of her wants to let this go because really it's none of her business and she's not some nosy Gryffindor (except she is), but the more paranoid side of her demands to know more.

Hermione tells her about a run-in with Filch the caretaker, a chase through the corridors and a three-headed dog standing on top of a trapdoor.

"Harry and Ron have been investigating now," Hermione hisses when they are alone in their table in the library (when did it become their table?), "even though they really shouldn't be breaking more school rules."

"It's none of their business," Ananke agrees. "And I don't care what's under the trapdoor. But you do have to admit that it is very unusual to keep a Cerberus in a school full of children as young as eleven with nothing save for an unlocked door keeping any unsuspecting aforementioned children from stumbling into it and being eaten."

Hermione blinks. It's the most Ananke's ever said at once. "The door wasn't unlocked."

"You got past it with a first-year spell. It's virtually unlocked," Ananke reasons.

"There's Filch, too. He's patrolling the area around the corridor."

"So a practically unlocked door and Filch are all that's keeping the likes of the Weasley Twins from death."

"You have a point," admitted Hermione. "But the Headmaster surely wouldn't let anything happen to us."

Ananke doesn't refute that statement because she doesn't quite know how to put her reservations concerning Dumbledore into words. A series of stray thoughts flash through her mind. A ban on dark magic. Death Eater recruitment in Hogwarts. All the power in Wizarding Britain. Most of the Order of the Phoenix dead.

"And we didn't get hurt." Hermione continues, "There are some wards that can keep dark creatures contained, you know. Maybe the Headmaster used one of those."

Yes, Hermione, she very much does know. Sometimes it was like Hermione forgot Ananke was raised in the Wizarding World. As a Black, no less. Honestly. It was times like these that Ananke could see what Ron found so aggravating about her friend.

"But it would make more sense to have wards preventing students from getting into the room," Ananke insists. "Or for him to not have announced it at the Welcoming Feast. It just seems awfully lax, that's all."

Hermione couldn't argue with that.

"I'll ask my father if he's heard about anything strange happening recently at Hogwarts," Ananke says.

"You father. Regulus Black." Hermione's face is uncharacteristically blank. Ananke has to wonder exactly what she's heard about the Black family from the older years.

"Yes. Regulus Black," replies Ananke, and that's that.

The following morning, the Black family owl, Athena, drops off a solid 5 feet of parchment from her father concerning his latest hobby-stroke-obsession: soulmates in Indonesia. Ananke can see this is the subject from a cursory glance, because instead of something like Dear Ananke, the words SOULMATES IN INDONESIA are written at the top of the scroll in bright red ink. The title is so large that even Lavender, notorious for being dead to the world this time of day in regards to everything but her own nail varnish, shoots her a weird look. Thanks, Dad.

Hermione peers over her shoulder to look at the scroll, which is a bit rude, but Ananke doesn't really mind too much. "Anything about..." She trails off.

Ananke shakes her head, skimming the parchment quickly. There's nothing about Hogwarts, but that's to be expected. She only sent the letter late last night. Her father's probably only just received it. "He'll probably send something tomorrow." She tucks the scroll carefully into her bag to read later, and asks Hermione, "What's first?"

"Transfiguration. Can I read that scroll after you? It looks interesting."

"You think everything is interesting, Hermione," Ananke says. "Even History of Magic."

This, of course, garners a snort from Ron, sparking another heated debate between he and Hermione and allowing Ananke to successfully dodge the question. It isn't like the contents of her father's writing are any great family secret. It's just... some things are personal.

In Transfiguration - why do they have this class so often? - Hermione and Ron have stopped arguing, instead settling into a sort of mutual loathing. The air between them is combustible.

Ananke partners with Hermione today, on her left. Ron is on Hermione's right. Ananke wonders why McGonagall insists on seating them next to each other when it's clear all they do is blow up at each other.

Ron slashes his wand at his needle. Hermione, somewhat snootily, corrects his pronunciation. He blows up at her.

Ananke watches it all as if from a distance. It feels a bit like she's watching a play. And not a very good one either, with tacky backgrounds and annoying characters.

"Stop," she snaps eventually. "Stop it. I am sick of this. Why do you even bother speaking to each other if all you do is say the same things, over and over again in circles?"

Her voice cracks at the end. She's not speaking very loudly, but her voice is loud compared to her usual level whisper, and harsh too. The strain on her vocal cords sends the pitch of her voice rocketing up into a half-shriek. Ron and Hermione stare. The class falls silent.

McGonagall, apparently deciding she's had enough, sighs. "Miss Granger, Miss Black, Mr Weasley," she begins, sharp gaze sweeping over them. Is it Ananke's imagination, or does it rest more heavily on her? "I know you three have your differences, but now it's affecting my other students. Stay behind after class."

Hermione looks shell shocked.

Ananke raises her eyebrows. You three? A bit unfair, considering it's Ron and Hermione who've been doing all the arguing and her trying to put a stop to it.

Her throat hurts. If she speaks, she won't be able to manage more than a scratchy whisper. She can't help but cough into her sleeve. 

It turns out they've all been assigned detention together.

"I have to supervise detention for your brothers all throughout this week, Mr Weasley," McGonagall says to Ron. Then, sternly, to all of them, she goes on, "But you may report to Professor Snape in the dungeons at six o'clock next Friday after classes. Make sure you bring your dragonskin gloves."

Well, at least it's just preparing ingredients. No doubt suitably disgusting ingredients, but she's just glad it's going to be nothing like those horror stories the sixth-years like to tell in the common room sometimes.

McGonagall dismisses them. Ron scampers off to whisper furiously to Harry, who's been lingering outside the classroom. Hermione still looks dazed, so Ananke grabs her by the arms and drags her a few corridors towards their next class, Herbology.

Hermione comes back to herself soon and yanks her arm out of Ananke's grip. "Detention? We must be the first in our year to get detention," she whispers.

"Actually," Ananke informs her, voice like nails on chalkboard, "Seamus already got three -"

"I know that!" Hermione takes a deep breath, and to Ananke's horror, her eyes glimmer with the beginnings of tears.

While Ananke wonders if she should try to reassure Hermione that they won't be expelled (she doesn't think saying It's only detention will be very helpful, but maybe if she somehow worked in an insult to Ron…), Hermione composes herself. She looks at Ananke with something like trust in her gaze. "It's just…" She trails off. "I've never had detention before. I've never even been told off by a teacher before. My record is perfect…"

Was perfect, Ananke thinks but does not say, because that would be insensitive.

"And -" Hermione cuts herself off, spots of colour high in her cheeks. She turns away resolutely.

Ananke thinks she understands, conceptually, at least. She knows about impossible parents and impossible standards and the need to be perfect. Perfect record, perfect clothes, perfect face.

But, really, she doesn't, because the generation of Walburga Black died out long ago, and the first thing her father did when they moved into Grimmauld was tell her never to listen to the portrait in the entryway.

It will only bring you pain.

She tries to find the words to make Hermione feel better, but they don't come. There are no magic words, no Wingardium Leviosa or Incendio to erase all the pain in the world. There is no perfect thing to say.

She settles on, "It's magic school, Hermione. Everyone gets detention at least once. It's like a rite of passage. You'll still be Head Girl."

Hermione smiles. It's strained, but at least she recognises Ananke is trying.

---

The next day, Father writes back. The letter is clipped and to the point, as if to compensate for the long rambling scroll Ananke had read the previous day.

There is never nothing strange happening at Hogwarts, but I've heard nothing aside from the usual. Whatever you've found out is either unimportant or so important that the Headmaster has the secret completely locked down. As you are not the type to chase after wild geese ("Er, that's not -" starts Hermione. "I know," Ananke says.), I assume it is the latter.

Have you heard about the break-in at Gringotts?

The letter ends there.

Hermione frowns, flipping it over. Flips it back. "What about the break-in at Gringotts?"

"He means they may be connected," says Ananke, because she knows her father's mind. "And it's likely they are. The Cerberus is guarding something, isn't it? Maybe a powerful artefact. Something important enough that someone broke into Gringotts and succeeded to find it."

Hermione's frown deepens. "What exactly did you tell him in your letter?"

"I didn't tell him what you found, but he knows Wizarding Britain is such a mundane place that it's likely the... not-mundane things, for lack of better phrasing, that happen in it are connected."

Hermione blinks. "I don't think it's boring. How can you say that when we're in a castle full of magic?"

I grew up in a house of magic. Ananke shrugs. "I prefer America."

---

"It's Win-gar-dium Levi-o-sa," Hermione tells Ron in Charms on the day of the thirty-first of October.

Ron looks like he's reached the last straw. The detention they've received has decreased the frequency of their arguments somewhat, but Ananke supposes it's too much to hope for that they would just stop altogether.

"If you know so much, why don't you show us all?" Ron says through gritted teeth.

Hermione huffs. "I will. Wingardium Leviosa!" she incants. Her feather rises several feet above the desk. Ron looks apoplectic, especially when Hermione shoots him a look with raised brows while Flitwick praises her. It's not quite smug, more like See?, but it annoys Ron all the same. Ananke has to admit it would annoy her too. She wants to tell Hermione to lay off, but every time she so much as thinks of doing so, her vocal cords ache with phantom pain, as if they'd tear open if she said anything and blood would trickle down her throat into her lungs.

As they leave the room, Ananke hears Ron tell Harry, "She's a nightmare, honestly. No wonder she's got no friends."

It's bad because if Ananke can hear him, so can Hermione, who is even closer to the two boys. Before Ananke can call or reach out, Hermione elbows her way past the throng of Gryffindor in between her and the door, twisting the corner out of sight.

Ron has the grace to look uncomfortable. Harry says, "I think she heard you, mate."

Ananke sidles up to them. "Yes," she informs. "She did. And that was rude of you."

Ron still looks uneasy, but he is also eleven and stubborn. "Well -  you're her friend - you know what she's like! You can't blame me -"

Ananke just stares at him and blinks, deliberately. It's a trick she's used many times before on Lucius Malfoy. Though glaring is useful for inspiring terror, at both six and eleven years old, it makes her look less terrifying and more constipated, or perhaps like an angry chipmunk. Not threatening at all. Staring blankly, she has found, tends to make people far more uncomfortable. It's fascinating how that works - she has no expression, no emotion in her face (perfected during long, long nights spent in front of the mirror, practising), but she still manages to convey something like What you are saying is so stupid that I can't understand it.

Ron stops talking, which gives her a moment to think.

Ananke's not good with words. She doesn't like to talk and when she does she doesn't say much. Part of it is because she can't always line up her thoughts correctly in a way that makes sense out loud. Part of it's because it hurts to speak.

She - she needs a moment. But Ron will probably leave the room in the time it takes for her to fetch a quill and parchment and start jotting down her thoughts.

Even now, he is restless. Guilty? Not? Walburga's portrait, she thinks, would wait for her.

It is true that Hermione can be condescending, though she doesn't exactly realise how much it grates. Ananke would be annoyed too, in Ron's place, but he doesn't always have to start an argument. Or poke fun of Hermione's colour coded day planner. They can both stand to be more tactful.

There it is. Everything she needs to say. But when she thinks about opening her mouth to say them, the words clog in her throat. In the end, she simply walks away.

For the rest of the day, Hermione is nowhere to be found. Ananke spends every moment outside of class looking for her. Eventually, as they enter the Great Hall for the Halloween Feast, Lavender tells her that she's heard Hermione crying in the first floor toilets.

Harry and Ron, overhearing, look even more guilty. "I'll get her," Ananke tells them. "Cover for us at the Feast. I don't think we're allowed to miss it."

"Yeah, sure," Ron nods his assent. "Tell her I'm sorry?"

The pitch of his voice soars at the word "sorry".

"Sure," Ananke says, because she can't figure out what she really wants to say.

---

She finds Hermione exactly where Lavender said she would be. Ananke follows the sound of sniffling, down to the furthest stall down and knocks once on its door. "Hermione?"

"Ananke?" Hermione's voice is remarkably steady for someone who's been crying all day.

Are you alright? "You should come out now," she replies. "We're going to get in trouble for missing the Halloween Feast."

Shockingly, Hermione's fear of disappointing authority fails to coax her out of the stall. Perhaps the unfairness of getting detention has disillusioned her, but it's unlikely that's the reason why. "Leave me alone. Please."

Ananke tries again. "You know, this is the anniversary of the deaths of Harry's parents. Maybe you could leave the toilet to - comfort him?" It comes out more like a question than she intended. Mainly because she doesn't believe Harry really needs comforting. She isn't completely sure he's cemented the link between Halloween and his parents' deaths. In fact, the thought of attending a feast seems to rather excite him.

Silence.

"You like Harry, don't you? At least more than Ron." 

More silence. A sniffle. "Please, Ananke. Go away."

Okay then. With a grimace, Ananke lowers herself on the floor which is disgusting. It's wet, to start with, and covered in toilet roll which is in turn covered in unspeakable fluid, and there's a patch of - something growing in the corner. She doesn't really want to know.

Unconsciously, her hand reaches up to rub at her chest through her clothing. She stops. She lets it fall limply to her lap like a pale dead thing. She knows how to make this better. She made a list.

Except now, her thoughts are racing faster than she can keep up with, the beginnings but not the ends of points to make and imprints of ideas and sentence starters forming in her head, half scrapped and discarded immediately and the other half left unfinished, only a vague concept in her mind.

Ananke can debate the cause of the 1763 Goblin Rebellion all day, but feelings are beyond her grasp. There is simply too much room for misunderstanding, for misinterpretation, for something to come up in conversation that she hasn't prepared an answer to.

Nightmare. No friends.

Is she Hermione's friend?

The thought is not unpleasant, exactly, but she definitely isn't jumping with joy either. Ananke doesn't really mind being around Hermione, at least most of the time, and likes her more than anyone else that doesn't share blood with her, and more than half of those that do.

Friendship means honesty, Ananke knows that. But she's known Hermione for about a month. She doesn't want to give up the inner workings of her mind. She doesn't think Hermione can truly understand her anyway.

Something clicks.

Perhaps all she needs right now is to understand Hermione.

"He's wrong," is the way she decides to begin. "Ron. I don't think you're a nightmare. In fact, I like you better than most my cousins, and we barely know each other. If we knew each other for longer I'd probably like you more than most." She exhales noiselessly. "Will you come out now?"

It's not a lot, and it's abrupt, and she's steadfastly avoided the word 'friend', but it's a lot from Ananke.

Hermione's shoe hooks around the stall door. "Are you sure?" There's a note in her voice Ananke doesn't quite know how to interpret. It's the opposite of hope. More like a warning.

"Yes." Her voice is flat. Too flat.

"Because I've read about your family," Hermione says. She says more after that but after a while Ananke stops listening. Of course.

This is one of the things she's prepared for, actually.

"- and I want to believe you're my friend, but for literal centuries the Blacks have despised people like me, people from - without magic. So it's just... How can I know that you're not using me or making fun of me behind my back?"

The first thing Ananke thinks to say is I have better things to do, which just proves she needs all the time she can get to think about even her preprepared responses.

"My father was raised like that," she starts, "but when the Dark Lord - You-Know-Who, that is - rose to power, he saw that blood doesn't matter, not at least in determining a person's value. So, you know, he taught me not to be a blood supremacist. And I was also brought up in America, by the way, which isn't very tolerable of it either. I don't care that you're Muggle-born."

It's something that is wholeheartedly true. Admittedly, she may have - not embellished the truth - but certainly twisted the implications of the fall of her father's faith in Pureblood idealism.

Blood doesn't matter when soon we'll all be dust in the ground, he used to say, before Mother told him to stopbringing down the mood, you cynic.

(Like you're any better, went the reply.)

She hadn't even mentioned his role as a Death Eater. And in a way that wouldn't make her seem like she was hiding it when it came up, as it was bound to do, much later on. (She is positive Hermione doesn't know about that. Very few people do, and fewer mention it, lest they get sued for slander of someone who had undergone a very traumatising encounter with the Imperius Curse before fleeing to America with amnesia.

That's the story. She's sticking to it.)

Inside the stall, Hermione stops fidgeting and goes completely still. She inhales. Exhales. "Okay." There is a brief pause. The door cracks open. "Can we stay here for a bit?"

"Sure. I don't like feasts very much anyways."

Hermione nods, biting her lip.

"Yes," Ananke says, not quite sighing, "I will tell you about all the balls and functions I've ever attended, in detail. Will you tell me about the Muggle world?"

"Really?"

"Yes."

Hermione smiles. Wrinkles her nose. "And do you - do you want to get off the floor?"

Ananke not-quite-smiles that yes, she very much would because it is disgusting, and does so. Hermione invites her into the stall. She accepts and they crowd around the toilet seat like a pair of giggling sixth-years, except they are too short to be sixth-years and neither are prone to giggling.

Hermione is outlining a restaurant called McDonald's when Ananke hears heavy footsteps. They're faint, but drawing closer, and is that smell the toilet or something else?

She clamps a hand over Hermione's mouth, halting a sentence about Happy Meals.

"Mmph!"

"Listen. Can you hear that?"

At Hermione's nod, she pulls away, drawing her wand from the holster at her sleeve. "Stay here. Don't move."

She slips out the stall, taking extra care to keep quiet. It sounds almost like the Cerberus has gotten loose, except if it had, there'd probably be a lot more general snarling, and it probably would've smelled them by now and they would be dead. As it is, there's only the sound of heavy, lumbering footsteps, regular like the second hand of a clock. Tick. Tock.

Ananke pokes her head out of the bathroom, just long enough to catch sight of a grey scar-riddled hand holding a gnarled club half her size. She darts back in before the Mountain Troll can spot her.

And she's sure that the beast lurching towards them is a mountain troll. The description fits, but - how many deadly monsters does this school need? Really?

She runs over options. Calling for help is not one, as the troll would definitely hear her and murder them, unless she used dark magic to kill it, which would bring questions that she couldn't answer without being sentenced to Azkaban. Ergo, dark magic out too. Hiding is out - she isn't sure how powerful a troll's sense of smell is, but she doesn't feel like testing it and potentially ending up another smear on the bathroom floor, thank you very much.

An ambush of sorts could work though. Slot beside the door and hit it with a curse - a legal one, preferably. If Hermione can keep quiet, it should work. Ananke knows she herself can, but regular children don't tend to possess her detached attitude towards life and are therefore more likely to be mortally terrified in such situations, which is annoying.

Ananke scurries back towards the stall, careful not to make a sound on the squeaky bathroom tiles. What decibel level do trolls hear at? She should have read A Menagerie of Trolls last Summer. You never knew when information that is pointless unless you are attacked by a troll will be useful.

Hermione swings open the stall, brow knotted but with enough sense to keep quiet.

Troll, Ananke mouths at the other girl. Be quiet. Let me get rid of it.

Judging by Hermione's looks of complete confusion, she does not know how to read lips. Which is fair, because neither does Ananke. They should learn.

Ananke shakes her head. Now is not the time to think about lip-reading. Her thoughts are running in circles again. She jams a finger to her lips and mouths slowly and deliberately, Don't scream.

This does nothing for Hermione's stress levels, but she's probably figured out they're in mortal peril anyway; the sound of nearing footsteps is not reassuring in any context.

She draws away. It's only then she remembers that Mountain Trolls have magically resistant skin. Short of incredibly powerful dark spells, no typical curses can penetrate their hides. She doesn't groan aloud, because even if there wasn't a twelve-foot troll about ten metres from her, she's not the type to do so - but also because the beginnings of a half-formed idea are in her mind. As per usual, the thought is incomplete and she couldn't articulate it, but she knows what to do.

Her plan needs distance, though. She backs away from the door, toward the stall at the end and lifts her wand, a spell on the tip of her tongue -

Things happen too quickly after that, for everyone involved, not just her. The troll enters the room, but someone locks the door behind it. Hermione, trembling and too afraid to not know what's going on, peers out of the stall, sees the troll and screams. The troll, startled, roars and swings its club faster than should be possible for something of its size, smashing through the row of toilet stalls, sending splinters of jagged wood cartwheeling into the air. Hermione dives out of the way face-down on the floor in time to avoid most of them, but Ananke earns several bleeding cuts to her face.

While she blinks blood out of her eyes, the troll a hazy red figure, two small boys burst into the room.

"Here!" Harry yells at the troll. Ron busies himself by throwing pieces of toilet bowl at the beast.

Ananke is beginning to feel slightly annoyed by now. Blood is dribbling down her face, her legs sting like they've been cut too, and now these idiots are making sure she can't cast any magic in fear of hitting them.

Harry looks poised to jam his wand up the troll's nose when -

"MOVE!" she screams, so loudly she surprises even herself. It feels part banshee, even as her throat explodes with pain. There's something trickling down it. More blood.

The boys back away. She wipes the blood out of her eyes, and aims, not at the troll, but at the ceiling.

"Reducto," she rasps, and brings her wand down.

A ray of red light jets out, sending tonnes of brick and mortar crumbling onto the troll, burying it in dust. Her aim is the work of luck, a silent prayer to Morgana, and hours of practice alone in her room at night. It holds true, and the rest of the ceiling stays up.

The four of them eye the pile warily, but when the troll doesn't rise up to bash their heads in with its club, they relax. Ron laughs, a little madly.

"Special Services to the School Award, do you think?"

She's not quite sure who he's talking to. She would've thought Harry, but he seems to be looking at Hermione. There's an apology in his gaze, but it's not really necessary. There's no I'm sorry quite like charging into a girls' bathroom to throw ceramics at an enraged troll.

Hermione looks somehow less shell shocked than when told she was getting detention. "We're in so much trouble," she whispers. It's forgiveness.

Harry then notices Ananke's face. "Ananke! Are you okay?"

"Does she look okay?" Ron retorts for her, and then, surprisingly insightful (or perhaps not so surprisingly - he's the only other one raised a wizard, after all), asks, "Does anyone know any healing spells?"

"I know Ferula," says Hermione. "But I'm not sure if it will help or just suffocate her."

It probably will, because Hermione is inexperienced and the conjured bandages will probably be less helpful and more resembling a noose. "I don't feel like becoming a mummy today," Ananke tells them. "The cuts are mostly superficial anyways. I'll wait for Madam Pomphrey."

The boys help lower her down to the floor, which is now littered with blood, wood and ceramics along with toilet roll. It's even filthier, but Ananke can't find it within her to care when her legs feel like spinsters holding up lead weights.

Harry turns to stare at her with wide eyes like jewels. "What was that spell you used?"

"The Reductor Curse," she tells him. It's a curse, so it's not difficult for her. Not dark magic, though it's not quite light magic either. Somewhere between. In a shade of grey.

It's a nice spell.

"A curse?" Harry looks uncertain. Wary. She looks at him and instead of Harry sees the Boy-Who-Lived.

"Yes. Taught in second year Defence Against the Dark Arts."

Harry clenches his fists. Struggles visibly. "Will you teach me?" She must be silent a beat too long, because then he follows up with, "Because I think if I asked Quirrell he'd faint on the spot."

Ron snorts. Hermione looks admonishing.

As if summoned, the Professor bursts through the door. Well, actually, it would be more accurate to say McGonagall and Snape burst through the door, Quirrell stumbling behind them like a newborn fawn, pale as the Grey Lady. Yay for the dream team.

Quirrell gazes at the pile of debris on the floor, spotting a mottled tree trunk limb visible through the gaps. He lets out a whimper, sways, and sits down. With a wave of his wand, Snape vanishes the debris, giving them all a good look at the fallen troll on the floor. At this, Professor Quirrell really does faint.

Snape bends over the troll. Professor McGonagall is looking at them all. Her lips are a thin white slash across her face. "What were you thinking? Why aren't you in your dormitories? You could have been killed!"

Harry droops his head. Ron follows. Ananke is not quite sure what is going on, but she really doesn't think they have anything to be ashamed about.

Hermione pipes up, "It was my fault, Professor. They were - they were looking for me."

Harry and Ron whip their heads around to stare at her. In any other circumstances it would be funny.

"Miss Granger!"

"I went looking for the troll because I've read all about them. I thought I could deal with it on my own. I'm sorry, but if they hadn't found me I'd be dead by now."

McGonagall looks appalled. Ananke can't watch this train wreck.

"She's lying," interjects Ananke from her spot on the floor. "This morning, Hermione heard Draco Malfoy call her a Mudblood. When I explained it was a racial slur, she spent all day crying in this bathroom. I only found her when the Feast began. We didn't know about the troll."

The lie is not entirely necessary, but she doesn't think Ron would appreciate her throwing him under the bus. She considered blaming Seamus, because he's always saying horrible things without knowing exactly how bad they are and is therefore a perfect scapegoat, but this is a nice way to tell someone about all the times he's called Hermione a Mudblood. 

"When the troll cornered us, we had no option but to fight it," she delivers. "Harry and Ron are not in their dorms because they realised we were missing and went looking for us. They arrived right after this -" she gestures to her face, a reminder and a rebuke of the lack of medical attention - "happened. They helped."

"Yes," Hermione jumps in. "And there was no time for them to tell a Professor we were missing. We would've died if they hadn't arrived when they did."

There is dead silence. McGonagall struggles with the fact no-one is to blame. "I see," the Professor says at last.

Snape straightens. "Who cast Reducto?"

"Ananke," Ron informs.

"Can I go see Madam Pomphrey?" she asks. Really, the lack of medical attention is appalling. At the risk of sounding like Draco, her father will hear about this.

"I will escort you," Snape tells her. It's not a request.

As they exit the bathroom, Ananke hears Harry ask Ron in a not-so-quiet whisper, "What's a Mudblood?", followed by Ron's "Oh, Merlin."

They walk in silence for a few moments, her and Snape. For a few moments there is nothing in the world but the steady beat of shoes on stone. The torchlight makes his hair gleam.

Then, "Has Mr Malfoy truly been calling Miss Granger that word, Miss Black?"

"Ask him, if you like."

Snape scowls (even more deeply, that is, he's never not looking sour), old hurts she's never had the courage to ask about rising to the surface. He sighs, and says, "Five points from Gryffindor for missing the Halloween Feast."

"Okay, Professor. It won't happen again," she says. 

Pomphrey fixes the cuts on her face in barely a second. Hands her a blood replenishing potion that Ananke chokes down reluctantly.

After performing a magical scan to make sure nothing else is wrong, the medi-witch frowns. "Miss Black, I'm afraid your vocal cords are heavily damaged."

"I know," responds Ananke. "It's permanent. There's nothing you can do." It's too late. Years too late. She's made her peace with it.

Later, Ananke slinks back to Gryffindor Tower to find Harry, Ron and Hermione waiting for her.

"McGonagall gave all four of us five points to Gryffindor!" Ron tells her. He looks ecstatic. She decides not to tell them about Snape taking five from her.

Hermione says, it's terrible, really, it's like they're encouraging us to break the rules, pupils blown wide with indignation, and from that moment on, the four of them are - something.